


Sealed Away

by ashesandhoney



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: A Drawn Out Reveal, Accidental Cuddling, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, IDENTITY SHENANIGANS, Kissing, Kwami Swap, LadyNoir - Freeform, Misunderstandings, Other Miraculouses, Slow Build, adrienette - Freeform, eventual: - Freeform, large amounts of:, small amounts of:, with little touches of Marichat and Ladrien
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2018-05-06 15:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 42
Words: 73,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5422832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashesandhoney/pseuds/ashesandhoney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years ago, Ladybug left Paris and left Chat Noir to learn how to keep it together on his own.</p><p>Marinette is back in Paris with an internship at the Agreste Fashion house trying to get the spring show up and running and as much as Adrien appreciates having a friend at work, he's distracted by Ladybug's return and more Akuma attacks than either of them have faced before. </p><p>Something big is coming and nothing can stay sealed away forever. </p><p>(feel free to mock me for the movie tag line but it was there and my self control for cheesiness is limited, please keep that in mind if you decide to embark on reading this thing)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Book One

“I thought about how there are two types of secrets: the kind you _want_ to keep in, and the kind you don't _dare_ to let out.”

― Ally Carter

 

# Book One 

* * *

# The Jars 

 

 

“The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.”

― Lois Lowry


	2. The Jars

The room was full of glass jars. The shelves ran from floor to ceiling. Once it had been a second bedroom in a stylish flat but now it was a vault. The walls were lined with steel and the window was sealed. The floor and ceiling were reinforced. It had been expensive and it still didn't work perfectly. Even through the layers of plaster and metal and wood, he could still feel the drone of wings. So could his neighbours. It wasn't a sound but it was there and no one lasted long so close to it. They moved in and moved out again. Maybe they could feel the weight of so many bits of evil gathered into one place. He knew that it dragged on him.

He didn't know what else to do with them.

Hundreds and hundreds of black butterflies beat their wings against glass jars with carefully penciled labels. Dates and names and descriptions because he didn't know if she would need to know when she came back.

He'd been collecting them for five years. At first, he had hidden them away in the empty rooms of his father's sprawling mansion. He had had tucked them into unused cabinets and under guest beds where no one would find them. His father wasn't the sort to have friends and he hadn't been allowed to let any of his stay in the house long enough to need a guest room so the rooms were museums of hospitality and no one ever found his little additions..

He'd packed them into cardboard shipping crates along with the few belongings he considered his own when he'd moved out at 18. A video game console. Some books. His clothing. A laptop. His set of fencing foils. Five boxes of evil butterflies. A beautiful white case that he never opened. He hadn't realized how little he owned that he actually considered his own until he put it into boxes and watched a team of movers put it into a truck.

Leaving had been a fight. For maybe the first time, in a fit of anger and frustration over more than a year of being lonelier than he could remember, he had refused to back down. His father had made threats and tried to make him feel guilty and he'd been too angry to let it work.

His final year at Lycée hadn't been over but he hadn't let that stop him from leaving. He wasn't a child model any more. He was the kind of rising star who could afford an apartment in the 8th Arrondissement without parental support. His name was its own currency these days. A different kind of fame than his fathers. Not a designer. Not a businessman. Just a pretty face. But people liked a pretty face.

There were days he regretted it. He and his father were all the family either of them had. His father needed someone to stay and it should have been Adrien's responsibility. He couldn't do it. He had needed the distance and the independence. For every morning he woke up regretting it, there was a message or an email from his father about some project or other that he was required to participate in. The little flashing icon on the screen always helped wash off the regret.

He had made friends who saved him seats in lecture halls when he was rushing back to class from a photoshoot. He invited Nino over when they were both off classes and they stayed up half the night playing video games and comparing their schools. Sometimes he went on dates but they never seemed to lead to a girlfriend. He refused to admit to himself why. He took modeling contracts that made his father furious for no other reason than that they made his father furious.

"You are half naked in this magazine," his father said in a tight angry voice after the first one. They were having a business lunch. Adrien had discovered that scheduling meetings over a meal actually meant he could have some semblance of a family dinner. His father had dropped the copy of the advertisement on the table beside the plate of antipasto.

"They would have paid me three times what I made if I had been naked," Adrien pointed out, "Really wearing that much was a bad business decision."

"You look like a prostitute," his father said and Adrien bit back his next comment. Even at nineteen, he was still unable to hold his own in arguments with his father. But later, when another underwear contract came across his agent's desk, he took it. It paid even better than the first. He was finally able to add a vault door to that extra bedroom full of fluttering wings.

Adrien Agreste might have been happy. Should have been. Everything was going so well. His classes at the university. His modeling contracts. His freedom. His friends. It was all going so well.

Adrien was so close to happy.

Chat Noir was not.

Chat Noir was exhausted and lonely and hadn't gotten used to it. Five years later and he hadn't gotten used to fighting evil alone. Every time he transformed. Every time he looked at the chaos on one of the boulevards of Paris. Every time. He looked for her. He turned and scanned the rooftops and the crowds in case he was going to wake up from this nightmare and find her right where she was supposed to be: at his side.

She wasn't there. Over and over, she wasn't there.

She had been seen of course. There were jokes that she was Paris's greatest export. A twenty first century version of Lady Liberty. She had been seen in Montreal and New York, once in Maine, once in New Orleans. Another time in Florida she had been seen on Disney World's Main Street USA wrapping up and fixing the villain with her yo-yo and a smile. There had been a lot of cellphone video of that one. He had downloaded every single video and had them memorized.

He missed her.

He missed her so much.


	3. The Intern

"There's a new intern in design, cute little thing, Mathias called dibs apparently," Pietro stage whispered when Adrien came into the room. He said it like it was the greatest joke. Adrien sighed. Design meant that the poor kid was going to have to work with his father's team of jackals. He would have said the design team was catty but that was an insult to cats. 

He dropped his bag on a bench and went to look at the rack of clothes with his name hanging on them. The room was full of models. He usually tried to be friendly but Pietro's tone had set  him on edge. He already did not want to be here. They were going to get to stand around for the next three hours while each shirt was pinned and measured and repinned and remeasured until it was perfectly tailored. 

These were the mock ups for the catwalk line for the winter show and it was all dark wools. Plain and dull. The magazines would call the line 'classic' and pick out 'innovative' details like fancy buttons or cravats instead of ties or whatever stupid thing they had come up with this year. He just wanted to get through it and get out. He had a paper to write that he hadn't started yet. 

"Are you in on the betting pool yet?" a voice said and Adrien turned from the charcoal suit in his hands to raise his eyebrows at Liam who had the most abysmal French accent of anyone Adrien had ever met. That list included every tourist lost outside the Lourve stumbling through asking directions. That Liam knew all the words just made his inability to speak more ridiculous. He was nice though and didn't just speak English and expect that everyone else would switch for him. He tried. Usually Adrien liked him. They had done a few shows together and he had been pushing his own agent to consider trying to find Liam advertising contracts when they were off show season and the runway contracts all dried up. Today, he was cranky enough to want to hit anyone who brought up that particular tradition. 

Adrien didn't disguise his annoyance when he snapped, "No." 

"Oh ignore him, I'm in," Pietro said, "Fifty on two weeks. She doesn't look like she'll last." 

"Don't terrorize her," Adrien said though he knew it was hopeless.

Terrorizing the new intern was considered a rite of passage in most fashion houses. Since Gabriel Agreste had the unrivaled talent of driving off anyone who might be considered kind, it was worse here. His design department was even worse than the models who wore the clothes. The stereotype of models who threw fits and cellphones didn't touch the reality of the Agreste designers. She was headed into hell and the models would just make it worse with relentless flirting and attempted seductions. They did it every time. 

"You're so boring," Pietro drawled with an eye roll and Adrien ignored that as well. 

The intern showed up during the fittings. She came in with Nathalie who had, of course, been tasked with giving her the tour rather than having one of the designers do it. Designers were more important.  Adrien had always liked Nathalie though he couldn't imagine why she stayed in his father's employ. There had to be better jobs. That he was still working for his father as well was something he tried to ignore. They should both leave. Everyone should just walk away and let Gabriel pick up the pieces himself for once. 

When the door opened, half the conversation in the room fell quiet. They had all been sharing theories about her that had grated on Adrien's nerves. They hadn't even met her yet. He was facing the wall while the tailor fussed with the length of his pants and a pair of the lower ranked designers stood around and debated shoe choices. 

"Americano! How many guns do you own? Did you order any freedom fries?" Liam laughed in English before she had even been introduced. 

Adrien turned around, prepared to step in and say something to him or to Pietro or to whoever decided to be an asshole next. They had driven an intern out of the room crying once and if it took losing friends to stop them from doing it again, he wasn't sure he cared. He paused when he saw her. 

Familiar. So familiar. 

"Listen, Irish. I was born in this city which is more than you can say," she said in perfect French. Not just perfect French, local French. He stared at her as she tilted her chin up and pursed her lips at Liam who was grinning at her like she was the most delightful thing he had ever seen. Adrien watched them and wanted to tell Liam to back off but this woman did not seem to need his or anyone else's help. 

For a moment her name had escaped him but he remembered her. She had sat behind him in class when he'd started at the college, had been class president, her parents owned a bakery up until the Disaster had destroyed that entire block. Alya's best friend with pigtails and clumsy feet and a clever mind. The pig tails were gone. She wore her hair long now and it fell below her shoulders. She was dressed up for her first day at a new job. Heels and a polka dot skirt and a black jacket over a bright pink shirt. 

"Marinette," he said aloud. 

There was a stutter of hesitation before she said, "Hello... Adrien." 

"Liam?" Adrien said. He was smiling, smiling wider than he had in a long time and he wasn't quite sure why. He didn't take his eyes off of her as he waved a hand at Liam, "I take it back, I'll put 200 down that she'll make it to the end of the contract." 

He stepped down off the platform and crossed the room to her. The pins in his pants scratched at his ankle and his team squawked at him to get back into place. He ignored it all. When he got to her he wasn't sure what he had been planning to do. Hug her? He couldn't do that. He held out a hand and she shook it once with a little smile before letting go and wrapping her fingers more tightly around a binder she held in her arms. 

"200 what?" she asked. 

"Euro," he said, "We take bets on the new interns. Pietro there thinks you'll last less than two weeks." 

She shot a look at Pietro who tried for a haughty expression but ended up looking like a petulant child. Adrien grinned at him and then at Marinette. She hadn't gotten much taller. Her eyes were still bright blue but not as carefree as they had been when she had been younger. To say she looked older was stupid. Of course she looked older but older suited her. 

"Congratulations. Your portfolio must be excellent," Adrien said and he knew it was an awkward thing to say. Everyone was watching them and that made him nervous. Being watched on the runway was far different than being watched like this. He said it again because the first time wasn't awkward enough and his idiot mouth needed to make it worse, "Congratulations." 

"Thank you," she said and then his team was crossing their arms and watching him like he was throwing off the entire day and her tour was moving on. He was an idiot. He climbed back up onto the platform and put all his attention on standing still and not locking his knees funny and holding his shoulders properly so that the clothing fit the way it was meant to. 

His mind kept drifting back to her. It was almost a relief to have someone who wasn't Ladybug pull on his attention like this. 

Marinette had left, as had many people, after the Disaster. In their neighbourhood the disaster was its own event. It was simply the Disaster. In a city that saw more destruction than most, that day had been worse than all the others. An akuma that had set things on fire had nearly destroyed everything. Adrien could still remember it. The smell of that many buildings burning. The smoke in the air. The people melting like candles into the street. 

He shook away those memories. The worst one wormed its way past his defenses as though just seeing an old classmate was enough to open doors he had locked shut. His mind swirled around the expression on Ladybug's face when she'd realized how far the fires had spread.

He was almost grateful when the woman working on his sleeve stabbed him with a straight pin. The pain pulled him out of the memories. She was apologizing profusely and offering to run off and get bandaids and convincing her that he was fine was a distraction on its own. By the time he was heading home, he'd almost convinced himself that the whole memory had never happened. 

It was a lie he told himself regularly but couldn't quite believe. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How obvious is it that I know shit and all about the fashion industry? Sigh.


	4. The Park

Adrien skidded out of class and took off at a run across campus. 

He looked ridiculous. Old running shoes, designer jeans, a long black coat flapping around him and a full face of very carefully contoured makeup designed for black and white film photography. He had rushed from a photo shoot to class and hadn't had time to wash his face or change his clothes. The jeans really shouldn't have even been allowed off set. They cost more than some cars but he had planned to have them back before anyone noticed. The teacher had glared, because after all that, he had gotten caught in the metro and been late anyways. 

It wasn't a good day. 

People turned to stare as he ran by as fast as he could. He didn't stop except to hand back a book he bumped out of a girl's hand. She gave him that starstruck look that people gave celebrities. He hated that look. No one who looked at him like that saw a person. They saw a pretty picture walking around. He didn't wait for her to ask for an autograph. He wheeled around and kept going. 

"I hate this campus, Plagg," he muttered. Plagg was tucked into one of the deep pockets in the coat. He had chosen the coat for the pockets. 

"Me too. No good cheese," Plagg's voice was muffled by the fabric. 

Adrien didn't really care about cheese. He hated the campus because at peak hours it lacked places where he could hide and transform and not be caught. It was four o'clock in the afternoon and the rush hour was starting. He needed to get out of the crowds trying to leave campus and change. He wasn't fast enough like this.

Adrien was never enough on his own. He needed to be Chat Noir before he could do any good. 

The news of the Akuma attack was still just rumours. Comments on twitter feeds and blurry photos on Instagram but he had learned that he needed to get there while it was still that small. He didn't have the power to fix it. His power was destruction. He couldn't put buildings back up once they'd fallen down. 

So Chat Noir needed to be there before it got that bad.

It might have been possible if only his fellow underclassmen didn't stand around in herds. They were as immovable as cattle and darting through them was like running an obstacle course. 

He finally made it out off campus and ducked into an alley where he could change. The strength that came with being Chat Noir woke him up like he'd been asleep all day and was only now truly himself. Without people in the way, without having to worry about all the eyes that followed the famous boy across campus, he could truly move. He vaulted rooftops. He caught himself with claws sharp enough to bite into roof tiles and leave gouges. 

And he got there fast. 

And found nothing. 

A city park in perfect order. There had been blurry photos of a car with a smashed in roof, of a man in a red suit floating above that fountain, it had been this park. He had recognized the fountain and the children's play set. He had come here when he was little. It had been the same place. 

He was sure. It had been this park.

But here, everything was fine. 

He dropped down to sit on the edge of the roof he'd stopped on. His feet dangled and he drummed his heels against the eaves. He twirled his baton with one hand and scanned the length of the park as though it were hiding secrets. The grass wasn't torn up. The slide wasn't turned sideways. He dropped down to the grass and walked through the pristine park. Even the flowers were all in bloom. It was a post card.

"Even the truly brilliant can make mistakes," he said to no one.

Chat Noir checked another three parks in the neighbourhood but none of them were destroyed either. Paris was bright and happy and fine around him. It was a relief to have it be a hoax or a mistake. His nerves were jangled but it was still a relief. 

He trudged home as Adrien, Plagg complaining in his ear until he bought a round of camembert and just dropped the entire thing into his pocket. His coat was going to smell like cheese but it made Plagg happy. 

“What happened today?” he asked.

“You took a scenic walk through half the parks in the city?” Plagg suggested between mouthfuls of food. 

“Not what I meant, I was so sure that was the right place,” he said as he slouched against the wall to look at the pictures he’d seen in class and figure out what he had missed. He had checked half of Paris. There wasn’t an attack anywhere. It must have been a hoax or old photos being reposted and he wanted to know who and why.

The phone was covered in notifications. His alerts were all flashing. Little red numbers counting up on the news feeds he had set up as well as all his social networks. A text from Alya came in before he could open anything else. 

<Did you see it!?> it read. 

Alya wasn’t so much his friend as Nino’s friend but he liked her. She was the kind of person who carried enthusiasm like a communicable disease. He didn’t go to the same school as she did and only saw her when they all hung out together. Adrien pretended not to notice how hard she and Nino were not-dating. 

She studied journalism, was a semi-professional dog walker, all while running three blogs and a youtube channel. That didn't even touch on the volunteer work she somehow managed to be constantly doing. Even though he was a secret superhero on top of modeling contracts and his course work, she still seemed to be busier than anyone he knew.

<no?> he sent back but he was already clicking open news feeds and it only took a second before he found it. In big letters, over a cellphone picture from the same park where he had found nothing but flower gardens and perfectly cut grass. It was blurry but it was her. He couldn’t see her face but the suit was unmistakable.  

Spotted in St. Germain

Paris Attack  

Ladybug Comes Home

<you’ve seen it now? THIS http://ladyblog.fr/post/04762893> 

<do you think she’ll do an interview about why she left?> 

Alya’s messages popped up on screen and interrupted his scrolling. She had linked her own blog. Of course she had, she was Alya. He stared at in confusion before opening it up to run through Alya's collection of the photos from the news sites. It wasn't a mistake. There was even a short video of her swinging up onto a lamp post as the Akuma flung bolts of what looked like lightening at her. It was only four seconds. He let it loop. 

She was back. She was back and she had been so close. He must have missed her by minutes. His chest was tight and he sat down on the edge of a fountain because he had temporarily forgotten how to walk. 

Elation and disappointment ran through him. 

Ladybug was back in Paris. She hadn't waited for him. She was home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't do update schedules but these short rapid fire chapters don't take long to write so it will most likely be pretty quick between updates. It won't usually be daily but when I'm in a binge-writing mood, I can put down 5000+ words in a sitting which is 3-4 chapters in this style so there will sometimes be runs of daily updating. 
> 
> Also, no, I didn't kill Alya, oh comment-section theorists. (ps, i love you for being comment-section theorists, I love having comment-theorists)


	5. The Test Shoot

Two weeks later and Ladybug hadn't reappeared. There hadn't been an Akuma attack to draw her out and she had even faded away from the newspaper covers and the blogs. Adrien was grasping for distractions. Thankfully, they were everywhere. Classwork was piling up as the semester got started and he was packing in his readings around the preparations for the winter show. A book in one hand while someone measured his arm or held fabrics up to his face to debate the suitability of his skin tone. 

If he wasn't at work or in a class, he was out wandering the city. Sometimes he went as Adrien, sometimes as Chat. There wasn't any trouble but he hadn't come up with a better way to find her. The fear that she was gone again kept picking at his attention. Maybe she had only been passing through. Maybe he'd only had that one chance and he'd missed it. Maybe he would never see her again. He changed and popped open the little phone screen at least twice a day. It was driving Plagg crazy but if she called while he was Adrien, he'd miss it. 

"Why don't superhero phones come with voice mail?" he asked after another call failed to go anywhere. The little screen was infuriatingly black and there was no one to answer him. He turned back into himself and slumped into a chair. He tilted his head up at Plagg and asked again. Plagg just scoffed. Adrien considered locking him in the vault with all the Akuma for the rest of the afternoon but Plagg had already settled into his shoulder bag with a piece of cheddar. Getting him out again seemed like more trouble than it was worth and Adrien needed to get to work.

In the lunch room that afternoon, he palmed some brie and dumped it into the bag for Plagg as a peace offering before picking out the food he was allocated by his nutritionist. Being a model came with some infuriating drawbacks and the nutritionist who determined when and what he could eat was the most grating of them. 

He did not say, "I have superpowers and spend my nights running across the Paris rooftops. You can afford to feed me another slice of turkey without risking me not fitting into the new shirts," but he wanted to. Instead he thanked them and followed the instructions and went home and ate like Plagg until he wasn't hungry anymore. 

Liam gave him a wave from one of the tables by the window but Adrien caught Marinette looking at him from a table with a couple of other people whose names he didn't know. They were likely the rest of the incoming group of interns. He changed course and sat down in the a chair beside her. 

And immediately regretted it. 

"Hello," he said and then said nothing else because he didn't know what to say. His mind had gone blank. Perfect. He was going to make an idiot of himself in front of her. 

"I think there are assigned seats," she said with a laugh. Then she froze, looked at him, turned bright pink and started to stammer, "I mean, you can sit where ever you want. Of course you can. I didn't mean you couldn't sit here. You can sit here. It's just that usually all the models sit together. I didn't mean.... You can sit where ever you want." 

"Would you rather I sit somewhere else?" he asked tightening his hold on his tray in case she asked him to leave. 

"No," she said immediately and he sat down and started pushing at his lettuce. 

She looked at him all starstruck and awkward for a second before she dropped her attention back to her sandwich. He wanted to shake her and remind her that she had been his classmate. He dreaded the idea that she could look at him like that: like he was a pretty thing that could be collected up and put on display. They had been through physics and literature and that biology class he had despised. 

If she couldn’t look at him like a person after seeing him throw up onto a formaldehyde-soaked dead frog, maybe no one could.

That thought was exhausting and terrifying. He almost got up and walked away. He might have if he hadn’t heard Pietro laughing somewhere over his shoulder. Even if she thought of him as a celebrity, she was still better company than Pietro. 

Adrien glanced away from her and across the table at the rest of the intern team. If Marinette was awkward, they were terrified and that was worse. He introduced himself, leaving off his last name though it was hardly a secret who he was. They wouldn't look at him like that if he wasn't Gabriel's son but he pretended he was normal. 

If he pretended hard enough, maybe he could make it true. He could stop being famous and be Just Adrien. 

He had had lessons on small talk. Literal lessons on how to be charming and he did his best to be charming to these strangers until they stopped looking at him like he was a member of an invading army come to destroy their city. He didn't ask if the hazing had begun or if anyone had already dropped out of the program. Light and friendly and then once they were talking to each other instead of gawking, he turned his attention back to Marinette. 

"How was New York? It was New York you moved to, wasn't it?" he said. 

"Montreal," she said, "That's in Canada. My mother has family there." 

"I'll tell Liam he can't call you Americano anymore," Adrien said. "Canadiano? Canadiana?"

"Canuck," she said, "But I am French. I was born here." 

"You are, I know," he said, “And France is glad to have you home.” 

For the first time since he sat down, she looked right at him and gave him a smile that wasn’t strained or forced or shell-shocked. He returned it. Maybe, maybe with enough work, being Just Adrien was possible. 

As the lunch hour was winding down and Marinette and struck up a good natured argument with girl across the table named Marie-Claire, Liam came to join their table. Adrien bristled when Liam leaned on the table at Marinette's other side and she turned to look at him. He crushed down all his responses as utterly inappropriate. He had no right or reason to be all territorial. He did not need to be so protective of her. Besides, Liam wasn't going to do anything to her. He was just flirting, leaning a little too close as he talked. 

Adrien told himself that he was probably just jealous because he couldn't flirt to save his life unless he was hidden away behind Chat Noir's mask. He made girls like Marinette Dupain-Cheng stare or bolt and girls like Chloe Bourgeois attempt to remake him into the pretty puppet they wanted him to be. Still, he was surprised that he wanted to lean in and wrap his arm around the back of her chair and draw her attention back to him.

"We're doing a test shoot this afternoon, do you want to come along?" Liam asked. 

Marie-Claire blinked at him and his terrible accent for a moment before enthusiastically agreeing on everyone's behalf. Marinette turned to Adrien and raised her eyebrows and he smiled. She turned back to the others and let them sweep her along. He wondered if she had been asking his advice. It had seemed like she was asking his advice but maybe he was reading too much into it. 

They called it a 'test shoot' but really it was an excuse to bother Les Nouvelles. Adrien had seen it pulled out against new photographers, new models, new interns, even once a new junior designer. They usually didn't try it with anyone who worked closely with Gabriel in case he heard about it. It had been years before Adrien had been allowed to attend and he suspected it had been Liam who had pleaded his case for him. 

It was actually fun. Most of the things they did to new interns were awful and he avoided the entire enterprise like the plague. Test shoot day was an exception. It was less mean spirited than some of the pranks and an excuse to be silly in a way that models weren't usually allowed to be silly. At least not models who were in house at Agreste. Adrien had seen fashion spreads that were bright and funny and unusual but he'd very rarely done one and he'd never had one of those pictures chosen for an ad or a magazine. 

"The items I create are classic and elegant and any photographs of them need to reflect that," Gabriel liked to say when the topic was brought up. 

The kind of test shoots they ran on days like this were not classic and they were not elegant.   
   
They used an empty office as their studio and piled into it. Agreste's clothing lines tended to focus on men's wear so most of the models were male but a few of the girls had tagged along as well as two photographers and the four interns. There were nearly twenty people in the room. Marinette tripped over one of them and when Adrien tried to catch her, she flailed. He made an undignified noise as she hit him in the stomach and they both almost fell down. 

She turned to him with wide blue eyes and started to apologize but he was still holding her by the elbow and that seemed to render her utterly unable to speak. He snatched his hand back and stepped away before he could undo all his progress toward a friendship with his idiocy. Before he could say anything, everyone was settling into around the room. Marinette, thankfully, didn't go and sit on the other side of the room to avoid him. 

"Test shoots are just for experimenting," Pietro had grabbed Marie-Claire by the hand and was explaining the afternoon's plan. He was syrupy and kind and so very unlike Pietro. Marie-Claire was pretty in a way that would turn heads anywhere but in a room full of people who were professionally pretty. Pietro pulled her over to the desk and sat down on the edge of it as he talked, "It gives us a chance to try new poses and set ups. So it's just for fun, but you'll help with that right?" 

To her credit, Marie-Claire giggled through the pelvic thrusting and the thing Pietro did with his tongue that always made Adrien a little bit uncomfortable and he'd never been that close to it. Marie-Claire set the tone for the rest of the hour. Everyone else relaxed and giggled their way through it. Some of them even played to the camera and let things go from silly to ridiculous. 

In a moment of madness, Adrien grabbed Marinette's hand and pulled her forward. She gave him that awkward wide eyed look and he regretted not asking first. Why had he thought this would be acceptable? Why hadn't he just asked her first?

"Want to see Adrien screw it up?" someone asked and Adrien turned to look at the girl who had spoke. Naveen smiled at him and he couldn't tell if it was meant to be cruel. He could never tell when she was joking and when she wasn't, "Ask him to try and redo the silent partner shoot." 

"What's that?" Marinette asked. 

"It was three years ago," Adrien said. 

"And none of those pictures were any good now were they?" Naveen said which started everyone laughing. Adrien smiled along. They all had their bad shoots and in a fashion  house like this, that was this small, everyone knew everything. Besides, it had been an awful shoot. Awkward. So awkward.

"The girl's meant to be a prop, he's supposed to pose around you but you aren't allowed to look at the camera," someone explained to Marinette. 

"That shoot would have been much better had they let you look at the camera, Naveen," Adrien said because he knew flattery was worth everything with her. 

Marinette turned to look back at everyone else who heckled her to turn around. Adrien was more self conscious than she was. How many ways could he make a mess of this? He was about to find out. If he had better self-preservation, he would have bowed out but there was a part of him that balked at the idea of someone else being up here with her. What if they were rude or made her uncomfortable? 

The original shoot hadn't worked but he could still remember the direction. He was good. He had been trained from childhood to model and he was good at it. It had frustrated him to not be able to make that shoot work. All the complaints were about things he couldn't figure out how to fix. There had been missing spark and energy and he hadn't managed to figure out how to recapture either of them. 

With Marinette, here, just playing around, it didn't matter and that made it easier. 

She didn't turn around. She kept her eyes on him and gave him nervous little looks if he got too close. He hadn't yet succeeded in his plan to convince her he was just a person. She still saw him as a celebrity but it didn't make him as uncomfortable like this. He wasn't really himself when a camera was on him. 

She was the first one to touch and it threw him off far harder than he had thought possible. He ducked around her, circling and watching her and forgetting about everyone else. She reached out, almost unconsciously and let her fingers rest on his shoulder. He stepped into it until she had her arm around is neck. 

This was something Chat Noir would do, not Adrien. Marinette was staring up at him and he smiled back. He was over confident. Not Chat Noir, but also not entirely himself. He had simultaneously slipped into being his model self and had forgotten the audience entirely. He let his hands settle to her waist and stepped in closer.

She was warm and her eyes were a shade of blue so familiar they looked like home though he wasn't sure what memory went with that feeling. He couldn't make it make sense but he didn't care. She was prettier than he remembered her or maybe he'd just never spent this much time looking at her before. 

He cupped her chin in his hand because it was the type of thing you did in a shoot like this. And maybe, if he took a moment to be honest, he wanted her to keep looking at him. 

She startled at the touch and backed away from him. She stumbled into a chair behind her, yelping and pinwheeling her arms. He slammed back into himself. Who she was and where they were and how far out of line he was: it was all suddenly crystal clear. He was as bad as Pietro and Mathias playing games with girls they didn't even know. He dropped his hands and stepped away as soon as she had righted herself. 

She gave him a look that was all wide eyes and he made a couple of hasty apologies and bolted out of the room before he could make anything worse. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is going to end up being a LOT of Adrien/Marinette in this fic. A lot. And next chapter is Adrien/Ladybug. There will be some Chat Noir/Ladybug as well. I haven't got any Marinette/Chat Noir scenes planned but I also don't have an endgame in mind for this fic, so we'll see where it goes.


	6. The Fire

After making an ass of himself in front of Marinette, Adrien retreated to the library. His father could yell later about whatever scheduled activity he missed that afternoon. He needed to be alone. If he were alone, perhaps he could temporarily avoid embarrassing himself or anyone else. 

He opened his backpack and fished out a notebook at random. Chinese homework. That was manageable. He had started taking Chinese classes when he was seven. It had been fun for awhile. Games and songs and his mother asking him to translate things around the house for her and being so impressed when he did it right. It had stopped being fun when he hadn't had her to share it with anymore. Most things had stopped being fun without her.

While his university Chinese courses were harder, they were also less stressful than the enrichment tutors his father had hired. Still he had a paper to write and he had made such a mess of the grammar on the last one that he was going to go through this one sentence by sentence. It would be time consume and keep all other thoughts at bay and that was all he really needed. 

When he reached the end, he considered going back to the top and starting again because the other choices were go home and listen to akuma wings beat against glass jars or go visit his father and listen to him talk.

Or call Liam or Nino or Alya. He had friends. He could call a friend. He sometimes forgot he had friends and every time he realized that he had done it, he was confused. It wasn't so novel anymore. He had been friends with Nino for years. His phone was quiet but he scrolled through his contacts just to remind himself that these people where there. 

He still somehow ended up alone when he left the library. 

He walked out into the streets of Paris with his thoughts full of apologies he could make to Marinette that would erase how far over the line he had stepped. He let his mind wander until he was imagining conversations with other people. Things he would say to his father if he was very brave or maybe very drunk. He had never tried getting very drunk before talking to Gabriel and maybe that warranted some exploration.

And then there were things he would say to Ladybug. 

There were so many things to say to Ladybug that he hadn't had a chance to get out. They had had years of being partners, of being friends and he'd filled up every conversation with jokes. Now all he wanted was a chance to say everything else. Apologies and promises and declarations. Accusations and jokes and questions. So many questions. 

And as though his thoughts had summoned her, he rounded a corner and she was there. 

He froze. 

And stared. 

Her back was to him and she stood outside the streetlamps on a patch of grass between the two lanes of traffic. Not hiding but still almost invisible in the shadows. The dark made the red of her suit a little duller and her hair was swept back in one long ponytail that hung down between her shoulder blades. He stepped out into traffic, some blew a horn at him and he swore back but didn't stop. 

He did it without taking his eyes off of her.

If he did, maybe she'd disappear all over again. 

Once he was standing on the same patch of grass as she was - close enough to see her earrings gleam in the flash of a car's headlamps - he realized where they were. They were standing in the middle of the rebuilt neighbourhood that had burned down the day of the last Akuma attack. It was pristine now but Adrien had watched it burn to the ground and watched the months of reconstruction as they'd cleared and rebuilt each house and each building. It had smelled a little of smoke for a long time afterwards or maybe that was something his guilt had conjured up for him each time he saw it.

"It wasn't your fault," he said cutting off the My Lady he almost tacked onto the end of the sentence because he wasn't Chat Noir. He'd been too distracted by seeing her to even consider transforming. Now he stood behind her as Adrien. 

She spun on him, her yo-yo dropping so she was ready for an attack. He took another step back so he stood on the curb, right at the edge of the grass. He held up both hands and tried to look non-threatening. She didn't put the yo-yo away but she also didn't immediately swing away. She was frowning as she looked at him. 

"Um, hi?" he said. 

She took a step towards him and into the light and he took a second to just stare at her face. 

"I realize you don't know who I am and I probably shouldn't say things like that but it wasn't and anyone who says that it was is an idiot," he rushed out. 

People had said it. 

She was the Miraculous Ladybug and her miracle had fallen short that day. He was already cursing himself for bringing it up but it had always made him angry. Since the first day at school when someone had asked, not even accused, just wondered aloud why she hadn't been able to fix everything like she usually did. It had made him furiously angry then and every time since. News reports and gossip in the campus bar and snappy angry tweets.

"It was my fault, people died here, right here, in the buildings around us, people died and I didn't help them," she said. 

"And hundreds lived," he said stepping in closer, he wanted her to be able to see that he meant it. Maybe it was better that he was Adrien, he could make her believe it. He was just a citizen, not her friend, "I remember that day, it was the worst attack Paris has ever seen before or since. People were candles, they were candles and they were melting and it was terrifying. All those people are still alive." 

"And because I wasn't strong enough, other people aren't," she said turning to look across the square at a four story building with blue shutters and a light on in a kitchen. It was one of the new ones. A little clothing shop on the first floor and then apartments above and a pair of garret windows. It looked like a hundred other buildings in Paris but she was watching it like it held answers. 

"You lost someone," he said.

The realization hit him like a fist. He felt a little queasy at the words. Only six people had died. Six. Out of the entire city, out of all the buildings that had burned, only six had died. He'd always thought of that as a sort of triumph. He'd counted all the wins and never considered the losses. Six people had seemed like such a small number but it wasn't to the people who had known them.

She had known them. 

"My father," she said turning back to him. 

"Oh," he said. 

"He got out, he was fine but there were three boys who lived in that building, back when it had the bookshop in the first floor. They were all little and only two of them were there when everyone gathered here. Everyone was out on the street waiting for the fire brigade, or for me, to come and save them. So my father went into the building alone to find Leon," she said. 

She turned and looked at the light in the window again. The streetlamp cast heavy shadows on her face so she didn't quite look the way he remembered her. The mask did little to hide her expression. There were tears in her eyes, making them shine even in the dark. 

"Your father is a hero, like you are," he said taking a step towards her. 

He stopped short of touching her. He wasn't Chat Noir, he wasn't her friend, he was a stranger. Chat could have put a hand on her back or pulled her in for a hug but Adrien was nobody to her. Still, he couldn't leave her alone on the street with her eyes half full of tears. 

"People always say that, that he was a hero and that makes it better," she said. 

"When I lost my mother, people liked to remind me of how much she loved me, that didn't make it better either," he said. "I don't think anything makes it better. Loss isn't something that can be bandaged up and fixed. It just is." 

"At least your mother's death wasn't your fault," she said. 

Adrien did touch her then, reached out and took her hand as though he had known her for years. He had known her for years. She just didn't know it. Still, she let him hold onto her hand without moving and then, rather than pulling away, squeezed his fingers. He took a step closer. He knew she was shorter than he was but somehow it still surprised him. To be Adrien and be looking down at her like this. 

"This was not your fault," he said. 

"If I had been stronger," she started. 

"If I had been older, if I had been there, if I had known where she had gone then maybe," he started and she met his eyes but didn't say anything. He asked her, in the softest voice he could, "How many people have you told?" 

"There are people who know that Ladybug failed that day and there are people who know that a girl's father died that day. Right now, you are the only person who knows how they go together," she said. 

"You need someone to tell your secrets to. Too many secrets just make you miserable," he said. 

"Are you volunteering?" she asked. 

"If you want me to," he said. 

Her expression softened and she reached towards him but stopped before she touched his face or his hair. They hung frozen for a moment. He leaned in. It was such a cat-like gesture that he would have kicked himself for it if she hadn't smiled at him. It was a sad smile but it was a smile. She had one hand curled around his palm and the other against his cheek and he could have stayed there for the rest of his life.  

"At least one person doesn't hold it against me," she said. 

"I'm sure it isn't true but at the very least you'll always have me and Chat Noir," Adrien said with a smile at his own joke. 

"I don't think Chat wants to see me," she sighed, "But thank you." 

She pulled his face down and pressed a kiss to his cheek. He was too startled by it to argue with what she had said. She was close and her lips were soft and then she was gone. She let go of him and bounded off into the night before he had even collected his thoughts enough to spin around. 


	7. The Lunch Meetings

Adrien's head was full of calculus. The new unit was harder than he had been expecting and he was still working on even memorizing the formulas. When he allowed himself a gap in all the equations, Ladybug slipped in and filled his mind up with those sad eyes. 

There was no room in his head for his father's opinions.

This fact did not stop his father from talking.

This was one of their monthly lunches. Adrien had wanted to skip it but skipping it would mean an argument later. So he had dragged himself along to the fancy restaurant. He had worn a suit. Gabriel looked almost pleased when Adrien looked up at him. He kept a carefully bland look on his face. It was almost as difficult as all the calculus to keep the right blend of interested and polite in place but he had had a lot of practice. 

"You should considering bringing a date that will catch attention but not cause the wrong kind of talk. You're still friends with the Bourgeois girl, aren't you? Her father recently announced his candidacy for president. You should give her a call," his father said and Adrien snapped back into the moment. 

"You would like me to invite Chloe to an industry event?" Adrien asked and his voice came out sounding normal.

"Chloe, yes, that's it. Pretty, blonde, right? You'll look like a matched set. The photographers love that. She can borrow a proper gown if she doesn't have one," his father waved off the concern of Chloe's fashion sense with a careless hand as he picked up his cup of coffee. 

"Chloe is not exactly the 'take out for a photo-op' kind of date," Adrien said, "If I take her out once, she will be having our engagement accidentally announced in the papers by the end of the week." 

"Marrying a politician's child is always risky, if her father falls out of favour, she won't be nearly as useful," his father said. 

"Did you honestly just tell me that my future spouse should be useful to the company's image?" Adrien said. 

"It's a consideration," his father said from over the lip of his coffee cup. 

Adrien took stock of the moment. His father looking pressed and neat and perfect. Not a hair out of place, not a stitch of clothing out of place. Not quite human. Did he wake up with his hair like that? Shouldn't his son know that? Adrien had lived in the same house with him for eighteen years and hadn't ever seen him disheveled. The restaurant around them was just as stark. Beautiful, yes, every floral arrangement and square of white linen was beautiful but it felt suddenly empty. 

"Is that why you married my mother, because she helped the company's image. She was pretty enough and cultured enough to make you look good at parties?" Adrien was angry but he kept his voice low. This would not be a scene. He didn't want a scene reported in the papers any more than his father did. He still had a dessert ordered but he got up and slowly slid his chair back into place.

He didn't want to hear the answer. Whatever the answer was, he didn't want to hear it. He retreated before he had to hear it. His mother was gone but at least there had been the fantasy that they had loved each other once. He had always imagined that they had loved each other. It made his father more manageable because someone good had loved him but maybe that had all been posturing for a good business deal. 

"I'll see you on Thursday," Adrien said. 

Then he left. 

Without being dismissed. 

He was an adult. He was headed towards his twenty-first birthday and he still couldn't walk away from a table with his father without needing to be dismissed. That thought just made him angrier. He transformed in the alley behind the restaurant, prodding a sleeping Plagg out of his pocket to do it and then took off across the city. Chat was faster than he was and besides, he didn't really want to be himself at that moment. 

Chat Noir jumped rooftop to rooftop until he was back in the business district. Perfectly clean facades and pigeon nests in the corners that no one could see. He climbed up the side of the building that housed Agreste Couture without really thinking it through. He found an open window and hung on the ledge for a moment to be sure the room was empty before he swung himself up inside. 

And the room was not empty.

Of course it wasn't, because that was the kind of day he was having. 

Marinette looked up from a sewing machine and a minor designer he vaguely recognized stood over her with a piece of fabric in his hand. Marinette and her arms crossed and her jaw set. The designer, Elijah, had pursed his lips and was shaking the bit of green material in his hand. They both turned to look at Chat Noir with wide eyes. 

"Is something wrong?" Marinette asked. 

"Do we need to evacuate? Is there another monster on the loose?" Elijah's voice was panicked. His arrogant sneer fell away. 

"A guy can't just break into an office building without a good reason?" Chat said. 

"It is a felony," Marinette said and a corner of her lip twitched. 

"Feline-y, I like that, I need to remember that," he said. 

"Are you sure there's nothing wrong? Maybe we should evacuate? I can go raise the alarm!" Elijah said. 

"You do not need to evacuate, everything is purrfectly fine," Chat told him but the man was already turning towards the door. Marinette turned to watch him go with a look of relief on her face. She slumped back in the chair and picked up the bit of green that Elijah had been flapping around and turned it over a few times. She dropped it back on the desk and raised her eyebrows at Chat. 

"What are you doing here?" she asked. 

"Choosing the wrong window, though it has brought me to you so perhaps it is destiny," he said with a grand sweep of his arm. 

She stared at him, frowned at him and then let out a little explosion of laughter. She leaned down over her sewing machine, put her head on her arms and giggled. He grabbed a low stool from against the wall, sat down on it and spun his way over to her, pushing with a foot until he caught up against the table. His stool was lower than her chair so he had to tilt his head back to look up at her. 

"Usually I am not so charming as to reduce girls to hysterics," he said setting his chin on his hands and watching her with a little smirk. She had an infectious laugh and he wanted to join in with her and keep her giggling. Adrien knew her a little but Chat Noir had only ever properly met her once. Still, a little bit of flirting didn't seem like such a bad way to wash away the conversation with his father.

Flirting with someone his father wouldn't consider 'useful' felt like a bit of a rebellion. It helped remind him that his father's opinions of usefulness weren't worth anything. Her giggle alone was worth more than all his father's sneering. 

"It's been a terrible day," she said without lifting her head but the laughter was still in her voice. She might have been reading out of his mind but he didn't tell her, "Me too." 

"Do you need me to scratch someone for you?" he asked. When she looked up he gave her a theatrical hiss and flexed his claws at her. She shook her head and gave him a rueful smile like he had done something charming but embarrassing. Maybe he had. 

"You need to go find your proper window, kitty cat, you don't want people thinking you're a stray," she said. 

"But I'm so cute, maybe you should adopt me," he said leaning toward her and widening his eyes. 

She laughed again and then braced her foot against the stool he sat on and pushed. He bumped into a cabinet and tried to catch himself and failed entirely. Instead he set himself spinning back out into the middle of the room where the wheel caught on his tail and the entire thing went over. It happened fast and he was left lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling feeling a little dazed and confused. 

Marinette came over and frowned down at him. She looked worried and that made him flash her a big bright grin. She scoffed but held out a hand to help him up. He kept her hand once he was untangled and back on his feet. He went to kiss the back of her fingers and she pulled her hand away gently.

"Adieu, my princess," he said. 

"Get out or I'll chase you out like an old lady with a broom," she said pulling her hand back but still smiling. 

"You're the prettiest old lady I have seen all day," he said. 

"Out," she said, "And if anyone asks, you were never here." 

"Where? I was nowhere," he said and then he climbed back out onto the window ledge and gave her one more charming smile before climbing towards the roof and the service entrance there that he could use to sneak back inside as Adrien. 

"Bye bye kitty cat," she said and he was still smiling by the time he made it up over the edge of the building and onto the gravel roof top. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had no plans for a Marinette/Chat Noir scene but then Adrien when storming away from the table and it was too easy a set up to pass up. 
> 
> In other news: Ugh. I am no good at puns. My Chat Noir has the most terrible puns of ALL the Chat Noirs in all the languages and all the fanfic.
> 
> Also I currently have a lead on the story! I've got chapters 9 and 10 done. Not 7 or 8 but psht who needs linear story telling?


	8. The Invitation

Adrien scampered back down the stairs. All he needed to do was pick up his school bag but as he was passing the workshop that Marinette had been in another thought crossed his mind. He slowed and then back tracked to the door. He hesitated with his hand on the doorknob for a moment and then pushed it open. 

She was still there and still fussing with the bit of green whatever it was. She had a little half smile on her face as she looked up. Maybe Chat Noir should take up a slapstick tour, cheering up girls and boys across France by falling off of furniture. Her eyes got a little wider when she saw him. 

"Hi," she said. 

"Hey, Elijah had mentioned you were up here," he said. 

"Did he also mention the imaginary Akuma monster he was running away from?" she asked. 

"There's an Akuma?" he asked. 

"No, but I don't think he's aware of that," she said waving the topic away. 

"Can I ask you for a favour?" He pulled the same chair he had sat on as Chat back over to her table and dropped himself onto it again. She gave him a strange look but didn't say anything about it. 

"Sure," she said. 

"Do you want to go to the Gala?" he asked. 

"Interns aren't invited," she told him. 

"I know that but I was thinking that you could go as my guest," he said. 

"What? To the Gala. The Gala? That Gala? Are you- Why?" she asked eyes going wider. 

He hadn't thought this through. It had been a whim. He was struck by the sudden fear that she thought it was a trick and he was setting her up for some sort of prank. Maybe he shouldn't have said anything. She had no reason to trust him. He had been imagining she was a childhood friend, like Nino and Alya. Someone who had known him back before the first international ad campaign or the first men's wear show. Back when he was Adrien first and model second. But they weren't friends. She didn't owe him anything. He faltered but he'd already made the invitation so he couldn't very well run away now.

"I'm not asking you on a date or anything. I just. Um. I need a date and my father thinks I should take Chloe Bourgeois or some minor movie star and I don't even know where to find a minor movie star on short notice. And. Well, I would rather go with someone I know and I don't hate. That's not fair, I don't hate Chloe but I don't want to spend an entire day with her," he was rambling and paused to take a breath before he rambled on, "It would be a great opportunity for you too. It's an industry event so there'll be designers and reps from all the big houses and the advertising firms. I can introduce you to all kinds of people." 

"You want to take me to one of the biggest events of the year because you don't hate me?" she said. 

Adrien dropped his head down onto the desk beside her and groaned. He had his face buried in a half finished bit of purple shirt or jacket and underneath it was a pair of scissors and some spools of threads. It was all very uncomfortable but he needed a minute of not looking at her. She had gotten more and more alarmed as he had blabbered and he needed to pretend it hadn't been happening. Why couldn't he talk to her? 

"I will have you know I am very charming," he said. 

"I know," she said and it sounded earnest and not at all sarcastic. 

He tried again, "We weren't really friends in school but we got along well, didn't we?" She nodded at him but it was a little wary. He gave her a smile, trying to be more calming. It didn't work so he just kept talking, "I'd like to be friends. This is my terrible attempt at being friendly. Come to a work party with me. Don't think of it as a big event. Just a party."

"I don't have anything to wear even if it is just a party," she said. 

"That's ok, I've already got permission to raid the warehouse," he said standing up and holding out a hand.

She let him pull her to her feet and and he looked her over. Thin but not model thin, too short for anything floor length but that didn't mean they couldn't find her something that would work well. 

"You're a size four?" he said. 

"Yes?" she looked at him baffled. 

"I spend a lot of time with clothes," he admitted before accurately guessing her shoe size as well, "With your skin tone, you'll want something in warm colours. Pinks or reds or even the right orange though a lot of orange gowns are kind of pumpkiny. We can try some blues if they match your eyes but most of the blues over the last few seasons have been icy and if the blue is too pale, you'll end up looking washed out." 

"You really do spend a lot of time with clothes," she said. 

"I do. I'll tell you a secret?" he leaned a little closer and raised his eyebrows. He did not cross into her personal space. He would not make that mistake again. 

She nodded and he said, "I sometimes dream of being a model." 

She laughed and it wasn't as unrestrained as when she'd been laughing at Chat Noir but hearing it still made him feel better. 

"Will you come to the party with me. Just friends at a work event," he said. 

"Yeah, yes. I will go," she said with another laugh

"Great, I will get you a proper invitation so you'll have the times and everything, when are you done work tomorrow? We can go look at gown possibilities," he said.  He was giddy with the prospect of the party for the first time in years. His father was not going to be pleased but he had found a way to turn a peacock show of a charity dinner into something that would help a friend. That felt like a victory. And she really would look good in a dark pink gown. 

By the time he left the room, he was feeling good. The conversation with his father was a thousand miles away and he went home that afternoon nearly bouncing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you want to know my favourite part of writing this story? Adrien being madly in love with Marinette and not noticing it. I'm playing it up a lot by putting them in a situation where he doesn't have many other friends so he doesn't overlook her as often as he does in the show but I think it's there in the show too. Adrien likes her and thinks she doesn't like him because he is kind of crap at reading other people. 
> 
> Also bonus Marinette POV scene can be found on tumblr here: http://ashesandhoney.tumblr.com/post/135987684421/a-bonus-marinette-pov-scene-from-sealed-away-set
> 
> As another bonus if you scroll down through the comments. I went on a long ramble full of headcanons of what the other kids from their class are doing now that they're 20.


	9. Phone Calls with Alya #1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is exactly the same as the tumblr version but these interludes are going to become a "thing" as the story goes forward so I'm including them in the actual document. There will be another around Chapter 12.

She sat with her feet tucked up under her on the little plastic bed in the dormitory. She didn’t attend classes because she was there for the intern program but the university had made an exception for her and allowed her to rent a dorm room. Otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to afford to live anywhere near the fashion district and two hours on the train would have left her with no time to sleep.

Her phone was ringing and she picked it up without looking at the screen. She'd set that ring tone. It only rang like that for one person. 

“Hey, girl, what’s up?” Alya said.

“Remind me that I am over him and I am not a pining idiot,” Marinette said.

“Is this about Adrien?” Alya asked.

“No, it is about the other boy I spent all my teenage years sighing over and staring at and being an idiot about,” Marinette said.

“Oh, you never talked about him, what’s his name?” Alya asked.

“I hate you,” Marinette said.

“Tell me what happened,” Alya said.

“Earlier this week, they - the models - were messing around and the had us interns come up to an empty office so they could try and embarrass us by taking suggestive pictures,” she said.

“Oh my god,” Alya said.

“It was funny actually,” Marinette said, “But that’s not the point of this story, the point of this story is that Adrien is very tall and smells very good and I got far too close to him and then I freaked out and fell over a table and embarrassed him so much that he ran away. Then today, he shows up in my workroom and asks me to the biggest event of the year. The big charity gala they hold at the Louvre? That one. He’s going to help me pick a dress and we’re going as ‘just friends’ and I think I’m going to die.”

“That’s kind of a big deal for a 'just friends’ kind of date,” Alya said.

“I know,” Marinette’s voice was a squeak and she shook herself hard and sat up in her chair. “But it’s a great opportunity. You don’t turn down great opportunities to meet the best in the world because your stupid teenage crush happens to be stupid and still smell good and somehow can tell what shoe size you wear just by looking.”

“That’s the worst flirting ever,” Alya said.

“You only say that because he wasn’t looking at you like that when he said it. Or maybe he wasn’t looking at me like that. He was probably actually just trying to figure out my shoe size. Which is why you are supposed to be reminding me that it was years ago and I am over him and it doesn’t matter that he smells good or has this perfect little smile when he’s embarrassed and is going to look so good in a tuxedo. Oh no. Stop me. Come over here and stab me maybe,” she said.

“I am not stabbing you, then you’d bleed all over the dress your hot model not a boyfriend got for you,” Alya said.

“I’m over him,” she said.

“Liar,” Alya said cheerfully.

“I am,” she said.

“You just chose stabbing over imagining him in a tux, you have it so bad,” Alya said.

“Not helping,” Marinette told her.

“Hey, I’ve been hanging out with him and Nino a lot these last few years. Trust me, you’d be good for him. He need a girl like you. For a ridiculously pretty rich boy, he has surprisingly terrible luck. Besides, you’re leaving again in January. Live in a little. Go on the date. Wear the fancy dress. Get over him when you’re back in Canada,” Alya said.

“Alya!” Marinette said.

“You did say yes, didn’t you?” Alya said.

“Yes,” Marinette said.

“Then go, it’s not a real date anyways. It’s 'just friends’ which is a free pass to just have some fun. You deserve fun. You’re fingers will fall off from all the sewing you do. Besides the troll designers who keep yelling at you will die of jealousy. I bet none of them were invited. Look on the bright side,” Alya said.

“I’ll go, it’ll be fine because I am over him,” she said.

“Liar,” Alya said but then she hung up the phone before Marinette could start another argument.


	10. The Dreamweaver

The Dreamweaver had already put an entire school of children to sleep by the time Chat Noir arrived. She was moving out into the street. An older woman with gray streaked hair and a patterned dress though her hair stood up in three directions and her dress flowed across the street like a curtain. Still, she kind of looked like a kindergarten teacher. Drifts of pale yellow sand floated ahead of her and when someone breathed it in they fell asleep, crumpling over cafe tables or falling asleep leaned up against a wall.  

“That doesn’t look comfortable,” Chat told the man drooling against a plate glass window as he ran by. The man was deeply asleep and didn’t even shift. At least he wasn’t one of the ones who was snoring. 

Ladybug arrived moments after he did and she landed at his side, where she always had before. He looked away from the Akuma on the rooftop for a moment, just a moment, to look at her. She was simultaneously tiny and imposing. It was like she was bigger than the willowy little red clad body she lived in. 

“Hi,” he said.

It might have been more than a moment.

"Look out!" she said. 

Ladybug had to haul him out of the way of a cascade of powder that fell across the street like a snow drift. 

“Can’t we just have some peace and quiet!?” the Akuma screamed at them, “Just take a nap and everything will be fine!” 

He caught up against Ladybug under a shop awning. They banged into the glass but the sleeping man on the other side only twitched. Ladybug held his wrist tight and he'd fallen into her so she was pressed back against the glass by the weight of him. She held his gaze and her eyes were bright and blue and unreadable. Was she angry? Was she sad? What had she meant when she told Adrien that Chat Noir didn't want to see her?

"Always a pleasure to have you here, my Lady," he said with a grin and a silent prayer that she understood what he meant. 

"Pay attention before we both end up sleeping in the streets, alley cat," she said. 

He grinned a little wider and she let go of him. Reluctantly, he stepped away from her and looked towards the rooftops to see where the Akuma had gone. Ladybug peaked out around him and caught sight of the cascade of powder coming towards them before he did. She grabbed him and suddenly they were swinging through the air as she pulled him up onto a rooftop. 

There wasn’t time for talking. They were in the middle of an attack and that had to be dealt with first before the entire city fell asleep. 

They weren't as smooth as they'd once been. He had to dance out of the way of her yo-yo, she had to re-correct for him more than once but it was still familiar. 

More than that.

Right.

It was right. 

 

He lost his baton when he got into a hand to hand scuffle with the Dreamweaver and Ladybug threw it back to him with perfect aim. He snatched it out of the air and felt invincible. He wouldn’t admit it, not out loud, not even to himself, but a part of him feared taking on these fights alone. He was always one wrong move away from leaving Paris defenseless. With her falling into step beside him, calling out warnings and covering blind spots he forgot he had, it was almost fun. 

“I’m fighting a flying brainwashed kindergarten teacher but hey, at least it’s fun,” he muttered. 

“What was that?” Ladybug asked as she stretched out a hand and let him pull her up onto a balcony where they had a better view of the street and where the Akuma was going. 

“This is much meow fun with you here,” he said with a grin. 

She gave him a look that wasn’t the dismissive, indulgent smile she usually rewarded a terrible pun with. It was more complicated than that. She still looked a little annoyed that the pun had been so atrocious but she also looked sad or maybe even guilty. 

“You’ve got nothing to apologize for, My Lady,” he said but another wave of sleeping sand was drifting towards them and she went left as he went right. He didn’t know if she even heard him.

The fight didn’t last much longer. The butterfly was in the teacher’s pointer that Dreamweaver kept swinging around. It was Ladybug who pulled it out of her hand and Chat who smashed it on the ground. 

And when it was all over, Ladybug tilted her head back and watched a little white butterfly flutter up in a lazy spiral toward the sky. A breeze pushing it towards the Seine as clouds moved in above them. 

"You really are a miracle," he said. 

"Mmm?" she said. 

Her eyes were half closed when she looked at him and he realized what had happened. A breeze whirled through the streets. Not much, just enough to churn up the dust and Ladybug sneezed and then yawned. 

"Don't fall asleep, not here," he said and she shook her head hard but he could feel the effect of the powder as well. She hadn't had a chance to clean it up. The Akuma was gone but falling asleep in the street wasn't safe. Did Hawkmoth have other agents? He didn't know and he wasn't going to risk her to find out. 

"Wake up, Bug," he said coming closer. A larger dose must have hit her than had hit him because she seemed to be fading faster. Wavering on her feet and yawning again. Indecision lasted only a moment before he grabbed her wrist and pulled her down the street. There were other options but none of them were as safe and all he could think about was making her safe. 

"Where are we going?" she had shaken off a little of the lethargy but he could still feel it in his own muscles so he didn't think they were out of the woods yet. The transformation made them stronger but it wouldn’t protect them from everything, including it appeared, sleeping sand. 

He almost took her in through the front doors but the doorman was sleeping over the desk there and he remembered that there were security cameras. The last thing he wanted was video of a pair of superheroes entering his apartment complex to leak out onto the news. Even bone tired, as though he hadn't slept in weeks, he knew how to climb up to the fire escape and make it to his window without being seen. 

Ladybug was half asleep by that point. She kept shaking herself awake but she needed him to help her up the last few steps. They fell into the apartment and he had the presence of mind to pull shut the heavy blackout drapes so none of the neighbours could see them. He hadn't made his bed that morning but it was now too dark in the room to be able to tell. 

"Chat?" she asked. 

"We can talk about it in the morning," he slurred out. He still had his arm around her waist and he wasn't sure if he pulled her down into the bed or if she was the one who pulled him down. He gave up the fight to stay awake and the last thing he was aware of was her hair in his face and then he was asleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeee. This is why there's an "accidental cuddling" tag on this story. Heee. I finally understand why people say they are "trash of the thing" in the words of Lin Manuel Miranda. I am trash of the thing. 
> 
> In other news, I move this week so we're going from daily/nearly daily updates to see you on Friday assuming I can actually get my internet connected or can find a convenient cafe with wifi in a new city when I don't have a car and won't get my bus pass until my campus reopens after new years. 
> 
> So yeah, enjoy that cliffhanger, lovelies. 
> 
> (or I'll have more time than I am expecting and update tomorrow, you know how it is).


	11. The Next Morning

Adrien woke up feeling warm and heavy and safe and good. He smiled and started to roll over because whatever dream he had just come from must have been wonderful but there was something in his way. Something warm and heavy and draped across his chest. He tried to shake off the sleep but he was too tired, barely awake. She shifted against him and pressed her face into his neck.

"Oh god," he whispered.

"Chat?" her voice was soft and thick.

"Right here," he said.

He reached up and touched her hair. It was loose and he smoothed the strands back from her face. She shifted again, pressing even closer and he had to remind himself to breathe. He couldn't see her. He'd thrown the curtains shut and it must still be night because even the heavy blackout cloth couldn't completely keep the glow of the sun away. The room was black as midnight and warm. He wasn't entirely sure he wasn't dreaming.

He was still dressed, even his shoes were on. They had fallen into bed as Ladybug and Chat Noir but he was Adrien again. Her mask was gone too, he traced his finger down the bridge of her nose and couldn't feel it. He pulled his hand back because she wouldn't let him do that if she was awake.

"Ladybug?" he asked then tried again a little louder.

"Hmm?" she said.

"Wake up," he said.

"No," she muttered and he could feel her mouth move against his collarbone. That wasn't helping with either his ability to breathe or his understanding of where the boundaries were.

"Please?" he said.

She lifted her head, still pressed in close to his side and still invisible in the dark. His hand was still in her hair and he untangled it but then couldn't figure out where to put it. He grabbed a hold of a pillow that had been pushed off to the side and twisted his fingers tight to keep himself from touching her when he wasn't sure she wanted to be touched.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Akuma attack, sleeping sand everywhere," he managed to get out past his heart trying to climb up his throat.

"Where are we?" she as she shifted and pulled away from him. He could imagine her half sitting over him. 

“My apartment,” he said.

“It’s dark,” she said. 

“I sometimes sleep strange hours, so I have heavy curtains. And it’s the middle of the night,” he said. Chat Noir should have made an entirely different kind of comment there but she sounded nervous and he wasn’t Chat Noir at that moment, he was Adrien. She didn’t know that but he still found himself falling into Adrien’s speech patterns, not Chat’s. 

“Are you hurt?” she was still Ladybug. Whoever she was in the rest of her life, she was still herself. Shaking off the sleep to worry over someone else. 

He sat up and held out his hands though she couldn’t see him, “Purrfect, not a scratch.” 

“You’ve been doing alright without me?” she said it somewhere between a statement and a question. 

“It’s good to have you back,” he told her which didn’t really answer what she had said but he wasn’t ready for that yet. If he pretended it away hard enough, maybe this could be simple. 

They sat in the dark for a long silent moment filled with things he wasn’t willing to admit. He hadn’t been doing alright without her. He had been surviving without her but Akuma attacks left people dead these days. Paris’s tourism had dropped off to almost nothing but those people who hoped to catch a bit of the action. The world, his world, was darker and more dangerous without her. 

“Chat?” she finally said. 

Her voice small and the blankets rustling and he was suddenly angry at himself for letting it hang in the air like that. He should have done more to reassure her. She didn’t deserve to sound that upset. She had lost her father and had moved halfway around the world and it wasn’t her fault. Hawkmoth and his Akuma were to blame, not her.  

“I’m just glad to have you here, that’s all that matters,” he started but she cut him off.

“You never called,” she said. 

“Oh,” he said. 

“I left you everything. I thought you would. I thought maybe we could figure something out even over the distance, we could find a way to work together. I thought you would have called or sent an email or a tweet. You could have sent me a tweet,” she had struggled her way off the bed. He felt the mattress shift under her weight. 

“I never read it,” he said. 

It had been the first battle after the fire. The last time he’d seen her. She had been quiet and angry. When it was over, she had watched the little white butterfly fly out of sight before turning to him. Her miracle stone was beeping but she’d taken both his hands and told him she wasn’t coming back. She had been sad and angry. He had never heard her like that before. She had kissed him on the cheek and pressed a small white envelope into his hands. 

“I think I’ll miss you the most,” she had said and then there was another beep and she kissed him again before leaving him alone. 

She sighed  and in the dark he didn’t know where she was. He wanted to reach out and turn on the light but she had always been so protective of who she was. It felt wrong to turn the lights on without her permission so he sat in the dark and looked at where he thought she might be. He dropped his feet over the edge of the bed. 

“I would have. I wanted to. I-” he sighed and tried to start over. 

“Where are you?” she said and her hand hit his shoulder.

Somehow her fumbling around in the dark struck him as incredibly funny. Or maybe he was just nervous. He had to smother a laugh as he took her hand in both of his and she sat down beside him and sat so her shoulder touched his. He nudged her and she leaned back. It felt like an invitation so he wrapped his arm around her and she settled into him. His heart seemed to have forgotten how to beat properly and was skittering around inside his ribcage like it wanted to escape. 

“I got home that day and it felt too big, too important to read when I was such a mess. I had gotten caught in that goo stuff before I had a chance to transform. I had thought I was the only one home, I left it on the table while I went to shower,” his voice for sounded almost calm.

The story came out calm as well. Just a reporting of facts. There’d been a pile of his father’s stuff on the same table and some helpful assistant had come along, gathered up everything and shredded it. They'd just taken out the garbage and gotten rid of everything. 

“I thought maybe I could find the pieces, put it back together again like one of those CSI guys but there was too much,” he said. 

“That’s ridiculous,” she said. 

“I know,” he said, “I wish it had been one of those things that was funny in hindsight but I still don’t really find it funny.” 

She was quiet but she’d grabbed hold of his hand as he told her the story. He could imagine them sitting there. If anyone walked in, they’d look like a couple who had just received some bad news. Letting his imagination out of its box was never a good idea where she was concerned. He was an only child, a lonely only child, he was very good at imagining things until they started to feel real. That was his excuse for leaning over and kissing the top of her head. 

He didn’t have a single explanation for why she tilted her face up and kissed him on the mouth. 

It happened slowly. His mouth was against her hair and then she was shifting and for a moment he thought he had overstepped and ruined it but then her mouth brushed his. He started to say something, he had no idea what was going to come out of his mouth and he didn’t get a chance to find out. The brush of lips could have been an accident but this was not. 

She kissed him. 

Gently and slowly. He pulled her in with that arm around her shoulder and she cuddled in. One of her hands came to rest on his chest. Not tentative but achingly gentle. 

Then he did something wrong and she panicked and it all fell to pieces. She pushed back, her hand on his breastbone was stronger than he expected but he didn’t shove him all the way off. Her fingers tightened in his shirt like a cartoon villain pulling someone in to punch them in the face. He wasn’t entirely sure he would be surprised if she did punch him in the face. 

“Oh,” she gasped and dropped her head to his shoulder, “Oh. I’m sorry.” 

“You do not need to be sorry,” he said and it came out more Chat Noir than he’d really intended. Flirty. Too flirty. She was untangling herself and pulling away, getting up again and backing away from him. 

“I should go,” she said. 

“Wait,” he said. 

“No, that was a mistake and you and I know and I shouldn't and you should and I have to go,” she babbled. That the very cool and very collected Ladybug rambled when she was nervous was endearing. He wanted to pull her in close again but that was obviously not going to happen. 

“I need to show you something before you go. It’s important and it isn’t about that,” he said in his best practiced professional voice. He sounded collected and together. Not at all like he could still feel her and was about to crawl out of his own skin. 

“I need to transform,” she said. 

“Alright, then I’ll show you my collection,” he said. 

“Of what?” she asked. 

“Go find your Kwami and send Plagg back here. It’s easier to show you than it is to try and explain,” he said then he got up and went by memory into the bathroom to give her a little bit of privacy. He turned on the light and sat down on the edge of the tub. He put his head on his knees and took deep breaths until he started to feel like himself again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I survived moving! I still have no internet at home but I made it!


	12. The Collection

She sat on the floor and stared up at the shelves. 

He’d caught her looking curiously at the rest of his apartment but she didn’t ask any questions about that. She hadn’t said anything at all since he'd come out of the bathroom to find her sitting on the edge of his bed, Ladybug again. He'd taken his cue from her. An unusually heavy silence between them. He pushed open the reinforced door and had let her walk inside without any ceremony or explanation. 

“I had this sense that something was wrong. I thought I was feeling the after-effects of the sleeping sand but it wasn't, it was this. Can you feel them all the time?” she whispered like they were in a church. No, a mausoleum. 

“The door helps,” he said, “When I used to keep them under my bed, it was a lot a worse.” 

“It’s like they’re all whispering but it’s too quiet to hear,” she said. 

“But they don’t have anything nice to say,” he said, "Trust me, I know."  

She just shook her head and stared up at them in awe for another few moments before the questions started. She wanted to know what he had tried, what had worked, what hadn’t. She asked for the stories behind the labels and some he had forgotten entirely. The names or descriptions could have been written by someone else. Others were vivid memories he hadn't been able to shake even when he tried. It had been five years. Five years and sometimes as more than one in a week. Other times there would be only one in three months. But even with the down times, it was a lot of butterflies. 

She stood up, all in one fluid motion and crossed the room to him. More by instinct or habit, he flashed her a grin. He was leaning against the door frame, one foot crossed over the other and his arms tight over his chest. He hated opening the door at all and he hated that he was forcing all this on her. 

She caught his face, one palm on either cheek and pulled him in. She didn’t kiss him. He was going to be teetering on the possibility of a second kiss for the rest of his life. Every time she got close he was going to remember it. If this was any indication, he was going to remember it vividly. They were nose to nose and his heart was trying for an escape again. 

“I am so sorry for this. I should have known. It was unforgivable to leave it on you like this,” she said. 

“I forgive-” he started but she put a hand over his mouth. 

“You shouldn’t. I don’t deserve it,” she said, “But I’ll put it right. I can purify them. We can release them. I’ll make this up to you.” 

“I know,” he said and then because he needed to break the tension and she was right there so he kissed the end of her nose. She laughed and jumped away from him. He slouched a little more, tilted his head and raised an eyebrow, “I can think of a few ways you could make it up to me.” 

“Do you ruin every serious moment in your entire life?” she asked. 

“All nine of them,” he said. 

She laughed and picked up a jar off the nearest shelf. The drone of wings got louder and the smile fell off her face. Each jar was too heavy for its contents. He knew that but watching someone else discover it made his skin crawl all over again. She held them in her hands, hefting one and frowning at it before trying another. It was like the air inside was weighted down by all the evil that had been packed into each one of them. 

He imagined Hawkmoth as some sort of fountain of hate. Even when he wasn’t filling butterflies were bad intentions and sending them out to terrorize the city, he probably carried that same aura of unease around him that each Akuma did. Some people were just miserable. Hawkmoth had to be one of them.

Ladybug was probably the exact opposite. She was one of those people who walked into a convenience store to buy some milk and when she walked out everyone was smiling. He tried to imagine her face without the mask but something about the magic made the details swim. He could describe her face in details but he couldn’t ever remember it properly when she wasn’t there. Still, whatever she looked like, people had to smile at her. 

“Are you staring at me?” she asked. 

“Do you want me to help? Do you need anything?” he ignored the question because he had been. He had been staring and trying to imagine her in her day to day life and generally doing what his grandmother would have called mooning. 

“I need more space than this. And carry this one,” she said handing him the jar. 

They moved back out to the living room. He’d never decorated. An interior designer had decorated. It was all very tasteful and beautiful and the art on the wall might have been real and was almost definitely painted by someone important. But the space was as personal as a hotel room. Still Ladybug took a moment to walk around it, running her finger along the frame of the painting and his bookshelf with its mishmash of textbooks and comics and novels. 

"What's this?" she asked. 

"A box," he said. 

"I'm sorry," she said immediately coming back to sit with him and turn the jars on the table around so she could read the labels.

"I didn't mean it like that, it's a box of old memories, mostly stuff from my mother," he said. 

He went over to the shelf and picked it up. He didn't open if often but he had a cleaning service that dusted his things so you couldn't tell. Ladybug watched him, he could feel her attention as he pulled out the little photo album and a bundle of papers that he wasn't ready to share with anyone and brought the rest back to her. She leaned over and looked at it like she was genuinely curious. 

Ladybug picked up a bracelet and turned it over in her hand and smiled at it, "I hadn't expected you to be this rich." 

"Is that a compliment or an insult?" he asked 

"Neither. I just sort of imagined you as one of those guys with a tiny room in a shared flat with posters all over his walls. All bright colours and loud music and staying up until 3am to laugh at terrible movies. Instead you've got this fancy place and your mother's old solid gold jewelry just sitting in a box on a shelf and there's a lot of beige," she said. 

She held a blue hairpiece in her hand and used it gesture at the furniture then noticed a photo he had missed and picked it up with a grin. It was his baby picture. He had been a chubby cheeked postcard baby with almost no hair until he was nearly two. He stared up at the camera in this picture with a little superman shirt and cape on and a ice cream scoop in one hand. It was cute but he snatched it back from her anyways. 

"You were adorable as a baby, what happened?" she said. 

"You know, I have stayed up to laugh at terrible movies until 3am more than once. I like old B Horror films. I just couldn't be bothered to decorate this place so I just left it the way it was," he said. 

She lunged for the picture and he pulled back from her which nearly dropped her onto his lap. He was laughing and she shoved him before dropping back to the seat beside him, putting a little more distance between them. He leaned back and made a show of examining the photo. She didn't take the bait. 

"Bien joufflu, toi," Ladybug said to him as she put the comb back in the box and lifted things up looking for more pictures hidden in the bottom. He snatched it back and put the lid back on. He mock glared and securely put the lid back on before he tucked it in under the table. It was the first time in a long time that he had been able to open the box and not have it ruin his day. He wasn't sure if it was because he was Chat Noir and that made him stronger than he usually was or if it was having Ladybug there. Maybe they were the same thing. 

He turned his attention back to Ladybug. Sitting there, on his beige sofa, as Chat Noir, opening jars and watching her felt a little surreal. She picked up the nearest jar and hefted it in her hand a few times before she squared her shoulders and opened it. The Akuma fluttered but didn't move for a moment so she shook the jar and it rose up in a shuddering spiral. She followed it, dropping the yo-yo as she stood. He let himself stare while all her attention was on the task at hand. 

She did seven of them before she wavered and dropped down beside him. Her miracle stone beeped at her and she yawned. He glanced up at the ceiling where seven little white butterflies fluttered around the lamp. 

“It’s going to take forever at this pace,” she said. 

“Have you ever done more than one at a time?” he asked. 

The miracle stone beeped again and she shook her head. 

“Then seven is pawsitively impressive,” she punched him and there was another beep. He got a little closer, bumped his shoulder against hers, “So it takes some time. Something about rabbits and turtles and winning races,” he said with a shrug and a wave of his hand. 

They sat together for another moment. She had two beeps left and he had a brief fantasy of her just sitting there beside him until she changed back. Instead she popped up off the sofa and bounced across the room. She paused with her hand on the door to his bedroom. That caused his imagination to throw some more fantasies that he pushed down before any hints of them showed on his face. 

“If I gave you my phone number, would you call me?” she asked. 

“Can I send you snap chats?” he asked. 

She laughed and disappeared into his room before the transformation could slip. He came to lean against that door frame. She was in his room. It was a stupid thing to obsess over. Just four walls, just a person but his mind kept getting caught on it. She was in his room. 

“Number?” she said from the other side. She was herself again and though her voice was exactly the same, somehow he could tell. Maybe it wasn’t exactly the same, maybe the magic changed it just a little bit. Maybe it was all in his head.

He rhymed off his phone number. It was unlisted because Adrien Agreste was famous enough that stalkers had happened. That any one cared enough about Adrien to go out and find his phone number and follow him home always shocked him and left him feeling rattled. He never quite understood that he was famous even as his face got plastered across billboards and magazines. 

The magic made it impossible to recognize her but it also made it possible for him to escape his life and be Chat Noir. Some days it felt like a good trade off. Others, not so much.

On the dining room table, his shoulder bag beeped. He scampered over to it and pulled out the phone. A bunch of messages from Liam trying to convince him to go to some party, an email about an appointment for the Dior shoot next week, Alya’s blog update about the Akuma attack - she had set his phone to receive them automatically and he could not figure out how to turn the alerts off - and then there, in the mess of notifications, a text message from an unidentified number. 

“Hi, LB,” and nothing else. 

“Hi back, C,” he sent. 

He heard it arrive on the other side of the bedroom door. A little chime. 

“I’ll text you, tomorrow, I’ve got a thing after work but after, if it’s alright with you, I’ll come back and do some more of them. I’ll see you then?” she called through the door. 

“Until tomorrow, My Lady,” he said. She knocked once on the door instead of smacking him in the arm and he feigned a pained noise as though he had felt it. He heard the window and waited until she slid it shut again. The fire escape they had climbed up to get in rattled and clanked as she let herself down the side of the building. He was going to get an angry note from at least one of his neighbours about ‘improper use of emergency equipment’ or something but he didn’t care. 

He transformed and fell back into the mess of blankets that still smelled like her. Plagg made a derisive noise somewhere above him but he didn’t care about that either. He was full of an emotion it took him a long time to identify as hope. 

He’d never felt truly hopeless but still, this swelling sureness that things were turning around was surprising. He flipped open his phone and the message was still there. It had arrived at 4:38 am. She had sat on the edge of his bed and kissed him. She had left him with seven butterflies to shoo outside and seven fewer Akuma to wear on his nerves. 

“Today is a good day, Plagg,” he said. 

Plagg didn’t answer him but he was already falling asleep with a half smile on his face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who has an internet connection again? ME! I do. YAY. I am also six chapters and one "phone calls with Alya" ahead because when you have no internet and your classes haven't started, you have LOTS of time to drink tea and write fics. 
> 
> Also Gidge made me a fics-in-pics for this story and I love it. http://angel-gidget.tumblr.com/post/136768144382/angel-gidget-fics-in-pics-2-sealed-away It makes me happy. *bounces*
> 
> Joufflu means chubby cheeked. 
> 
> I know I haven't used ANY French translations anywhere in this entire fic but it was just too cute a word to pass up.


	13. The Warehouse

For a day that had began with kisses and miracles, it didn’t seem to have any inclination to remain good. He overslept and was late for his lecture. He smashed his finger during a practical lab assignment. Then there was the fall out from the lunch he had stormed away from. That conversation had happened in his father’s office which always made it feel a little less like it was his father telling him off and more like it was his boss. 

Every time he had a free moment, he sent text messages full of nothing to the number he’d assigned in his phone only as L. Puns and jokes. A picture of a squirrel with the caption, “Do you think it would be undignified to chase it?” Anything and everything except, "I miss you," because there were still things he couldn't say.

Sometimes he got answers right away, sometimes she didn’t respond for hours. Whatever her day job was, it left her with less time for sending inane text messages than his did. 

“Good day?” Marinette asked when he met her outside the design offices. 

“No,” he said, “But I’m in one of those good moods that doesn’t need a good day. I’m a strong independent young - well, not a woman but that doesn’t mean I can’t use the quote, strong independent young man and I don’t need a good day to have a good day, you know?” he said. She gave him a strange look and he realized he was talking to her the way he’d talk to Nino or Ladybug. That made him grin a little wider. He was so glad to have another friend to add to his terribly small list. 

“Are you reconsidering being friends with me yet?” he asked. 

“Not yet,” she said. 

“Give it another week, you’ll get sick of me. Until then, let’s go shopping,” he said putting both hands on her shoulders and turning her in the direction of the elevators. 

He was giddy and Marinette kept disappearing into her thoughts. She wasn’t as carefully dressed as she usually was. In a building full of the fashion obsessed, he hadn’t noticed that she dressed well until her shoes didn’t match her bag and her sweater fit wrong.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked as they got off the elevator. He had talked the entire way down but she had looked through him. 

“Do you ever wonder how things would be different if one thing was changed?” she said. 

“All the time,” he said. Ladybug, his mother, the miracle stone. How much he lost or gained from single little moments. Some good, some bad. He watched her as she looked anywhere but at him.

He led her down a long stark hallway. All that was down here was storage rooms. Everything from printer cartridges to extra thread to the show pieces from past runway lines was kept here. It was concrete walls all painted white. Nothing like the well appointed offices and workrooms above. He liked it because it was like seeing the side of the business where it didn’t pretend to be more important than the rest of the world. Even fashion designers needed printers and new pencils. 

“My mind is full of what-ifs today, but it doesn't matter. You were going to help me pick a dress,” she said with a shake of her head. She gave him a big grin. It was a little bit forced but he knew all about putting a good face on so he didn’t push her. 

“If we really wanted to make a splash, I could go in the dress,” Adrien said pushing open a room labeled Spring 2014-Present. 

“Whoa,” she said but it wasn’t at the prospect of him in a dress. He grinned at her as she stepped into the room ahead of him. He’d grown up not just in fashion but at the top of fashion. Gowns that cost more than a car weren’t something that even gave him pause. He only cared so much. To him, it simly was but to Marinette, it was something else entirely. Marinette liked fashion. She cared about this stuff. He knew exactly what dress he wanted to give her but he let her go through the racks. Pulling out plastic covered silks and asking him before she opened anything to look at them. 

“This is from the New York show in 2014,” she said, “I remember it. The colour’s called Banana Cream which sounds stupid but it’s still popular. It’s made it down to the department store lines too. I think I have a cardigan this colour.”

Banana Cream was actually originally used in the 2009 Milan show, it just didn’t catch on for a few more years. He had named it. He had been eight. His mother had still been there to convince his father that letting something go to runway with a child’s name on it was adorable. She’d also had him a shirt made up in the same colour. It looked terrible on him - almost the exact same colour as his hair - but he had loved it. 

“Not the right one for you though,” he said instead of telling her the story. Today wasn't about his childhood, it was about her. 

“No and you can’t wear a dress that old to an event like this but this thing is a piece of fashion history,” Marinette told him. 

“Come on, I've got other ones for ou to look at,” he said. 

“I am not going to fit into half of this stuff,” she said, “And not just because I’m too short.”

“We’ll have to make alterations but I know this girl who has access to the design labs and probably even knows how to use the big sewing machines,” he said. 

“You want me to modify one of these?” she squeaked. 

“They’re out of style and all for tall scrawny people, you can’t just wear it off the rack,” he said. 

“I can’t alter it! It isn’t from a thrift shop! That dress is worth thousands of dollars!” she said. 

“I got permission,” he said. 

It took a little more cajoling and debating before she agreed but only if it wasn’t a runway gown. That was a little bit disappointing. A piece of him had wanted to see what she would do if she was redoing a dress like that. This was the girl who had once made a pigeon hat for a school design competition. Pigeon hats were not classic. His father's designs were always intended to be classic. As far as Adrien had ever been able to figure out, classic was another word for boring. It would be nice to see what someone genuinely creative would do with one of his father’s designs. 

He paused behind a rack to pull out his phone and send a message to Ladybug, “What are your thoughts on feathers as a fashion statement?” 

“Your mind is a very bizarre place. I don’t know if I want you to text whatever you’re thinking anymore. I am going to block your number,” came the almost immediate reply. 

“Or you could meet me at seven and wear something with feathers. Like a boa or a showgirl costume,” he sent, typing one handed so he could pretend to still be looking at dresses if Marinette came around the corner. 

“Are you asking me to dress up like a cat toy? Maybe I should bring you some mice too?”  she sent back. 

“I do not eat mice but we can play if you want,” he told her and then he had made it to the end of the row and he held out some of the dresses he had found for Marinette to look at while he put his phone away. She was lost in her own little world again. Her bag held between both hands but with a half smile on her face. That was better than she had been in the elevator.

She shut down three of his four selections and after looking at the hem on the fourth, sent it back too. She knew what she was looking for and he hadn't found it yet. He was scrambling to find a replacement for the gown he’d been imagining for her. Finally, while going through the mock-ups for an evening wear line that was only two years old, he found something almost as good. It was exactly the right colour but a very different style. 

“You can change anything you want about it, but I’m going to recommend you start with this thing on the neckline,” he said holding it out. Dark pink, not red but nearly as rich. Soft, floaty fabric. He couldn’t picture Marinette in something clinging and she hadn’t picked a single dress like that out for herself as she’d gone through the racks. She would look good in something with a dropped neckline and fabric that hugged close to her body but he wasn’t getting the impression she would feel comfortable in it.  

She took it from him and held it up to herself. She considered it in a mirror for a long time and then flipped it inside out and started looking at the seams. Adrien dealt in finished clothing. He had no idea what she was looking for. 

“It’s short,” she said. 

“But it’s all flouncy, short is only bad if it looks trashy, this will look cute. Besides, it isn’t that short,” he said holding it up to her again. It was inside out but it was her colour and he didn’t want to loose this argument. It hung most of the way to her knees and he didn’t get why she thought it was too short, “Unless you’re secretly a nun. You don’t strike me as the nun-type.”

“These, model boy, are hips,” she said pointing, “And by some magic or maybe surgery, it could be surgery, everyone who works as a model does not seem to have any. In order to make it fit over my hips, I am going to lose length.” 

He considered that and then realized that in considering that he had been looking a little more closely at her legs than might be polite. He dragged his eyes up and said, “Well, at least they’re very nice hips,” because he’d just been flirting with Ladybug and apparently hadn’t put Chat Noir back into his box. 

Marinette turned scarlet and exhaled hard like she was trying to push her embarrassment out. She turned back to the dress, fussing with a hemline. Adrien dropped himself into a nearby folding chair and attempted to apologize. 

“I might have been sending suggestive text messages to someone else and forgot who I was talking to,” he said, “I didn’t mean to be rude. I really did mean it as a compliment but I am very sorry. I will not say anything like that again.” 

“I wouldn’t have thought of you as the suggestive text message type,” Marinette said. 

“I’m not, not with most people,” he said. 

“I’ll go with this one,” she said more to the dress than to him. She cut off the other conversation completely and he was grateful to have it go. “You’re sure neither Stefan nor Elijah is going to scream at me if I start cutting it up?” 

“The dress is yours. You can do anything you want to it. And if they do complain, blame me and they can come yell at me instead,” he said. 

“Thank you, Adrien, really, thank you,” she said gathering up the dress in its cover and turning to look at him, “And I hope it works out with whoever you’re flirting with.” 

She turned and headed back towards the door. He hurried along to catch up, turning out lights and straightening up as they went. 

“I hope so too,” he said in the elevator on the way back up and her eyes darted up to his face in the mirror and then away again. She was disappearing back into her own little world again. He leaned over and nudged her with his shoulder. She jumped and gave him a confused look. She wasn’t that kind of friend. Not yet, but he really wanted her to be someone he could joke around with.

He asked, “Why weren’t we friends back in school?” 

“Because you’re famous and beautiful and make me nervous,” she said and then turned that bright pink colour again as she shook her head like she could shake the words off. 

“I’m not beautiful and being famous is overrated and I’m not worth making anyone nervous. Especially someone like you. I’m incapable of having a normal conversation with anyone and my only major talent is my bone structure. Your work is going to be on the runways by the time your thirty,” he said. 

The elevator came to a stop and instead of getting out she turned to him. Her face was still pink across her cheekbones but she met his eyes which she hadn’t done since he’d made the hips comment. She went from shy and awkward to direct in the blink of an eye. 

“You’re on your way to being one of the best at what you do and you’re not even twenty five yet. And don’t tell me it’s because you have good cheekbones. Lots of people have good cheekbones. There’s skill in what you do and on top of it all, even though you didn’t have to, you’re in university. Studying something with lots of math according to Pietro. He seems to think this is a reason that you’re a boring nerd but it’s not, Adrien, it’s impressive. Don’t let anyone make you think less of yourself. It’s impressive. You’re impressive,” she said and then she turned and ducked out of the elevator. 

They had stood there long enough that the doors nearly closed on her. Adrien was left watching the space where she had been as the doors slid back in and showed him nothing but a reflection of his own face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And yes, hat tip to Devil Wear's Prada for the cardigan comment. Shamelessly stole it.


	14. Phone Calls with Alya #2

“How did dress shopping with the hot boy go?” Alya asked instead of saying hello.

“Good, it’s gorgeous. Even the fabric would cost more than I make in 3 months and he told me I can do anything I want to it. I’ve got an Agreste original sitting on my bed and Adrien tells me I should chop it up and remake it however I like,” she said.

“Sounds like fun,” Alya said.

“He also told me I have nice hips,” Marinette said.

“What the hell kind of compliment is that? First shoe size and now random body compliments. I need to talk to him,” Alya asked.

“I don’t know. He’s so awkward. I always thought he was charming but maybe that's just because I couldn't speak to him without my brain shutting down. Aren’t models supposed to be suave? He always seems so put together in interviews but he just sort of bumbles through conversations like he’s constantly thinking about ten things all at once,” Marinette said.

“And you think it’s adorable,” Alya said.

“It is adorable," Marinette sighed.

"Should I sing the song for you?" Alya said.

"The song?" Marinette said.

"The 'you've got it so bad' song," Alya said.

"No, that's not a real song and I don't want you to to mock me to music. What’s he studying?” Marinette asked.

“Bridge building or something. It’s all math and if you get it wrong then buildings fall on people, that kind of thing. He’s modeling his way through an architecture degree because I think he hates himself. That’s the only theory I’ve come up with that makes any sense,” Alya said.

Marinette sighed and remembered the expression on his face when he’d said that he wasn’t worth making anyone nervous. Alya was joking but the way that he’d said it had made her think that maybe he really didn’t like himself much and that thought made her chest hurt.

“Earth to Marinette!” Alya said through the phone.

“Sorry,” she said.

“How are Jackass and Trollface?” Alya asked.

“Adrien told me I can send Elijah after him if I get into any trouble with the dress. I think this proves he’s a saint of some sort. No one volunteers to speak to Elijah for any reason. He’s the most miserable person I have ever met. If he didn’t wear such boring suits, I’d be pretty sure that Ladybug and Chat Noir should be sent after him. Even the Akuma have more interesting outfits than he does. And he's a fashion designer,” Marinette said.

The conversation wove its way onto other things. Alya’s blog. Marinette’s mother’s worries. Alya’s classes. TV shows. Some internet meme involving cats in bow ties that Marinette hadn’t even seen because she spent all her time sewing and worrying about sewing. She wasn’t even sure how she was going to find time to spend an hour a day purifying akuma.

“I need some advice,” she said, interrupting Alya’s explanation of why the bowtie thing was funny.

“Anything,” Alya said, “Is this about a certain blonde?”

“Before I tell you anything you need to repeat after me,” Marinette said and Alya agreed.

She made Alya repeat: "I swear I will not ask for any names or identifying details and if I do, may lightning strike me down."

“That’s ominous but yes, I promise I won’t ask for any names, tell me this story,” Alya said.

“I kissed a boy I shouldn’t have kissed,” Marinette said.

“What?! Who… Ok, no names but WHAT?!”

“You know when you think you know someone and they’re just a friend. Very much just a friend. But then you see them again and it’s been years and they’re the same but also different,” she said.

“I really want to ask you for names right now,” Alya said.

“I know, that’s why I made you swear first,” Marinette said, “But he was there and he was all warm and so much gentler than I ever thought he could be. He kissed me on the top of the head and it was cute. He’s never cute like that. He’s the kind of flirty that’s just obnoxious.”

“So why put up with him at all?” Alya asked.

“Because he’s my,” she couldn’t figure out what word to put in there. Partner was what she wanted to use but that would open up so many questions that she wasn’t willing to answer. “He’s my friend. I trust him. I like him. I even missed his horrible jokes when I was away. My god, I missed him so much."

She paused, shaking her head and setting her jaw even though Alya wasn't there to see it, "But we’re not like that.”

“We’re not like that either, should I be worried you are going to kiss me?” Alya asked.

“If you cuddle up close like that then yeah, maybe. I can’t be trusted! I have idiot lips, they do what they want,” Marinette said.

“That sounds dangerous. But I am safe, I don’t cuddle. You would be a cuddler. You look like a cuddler,” Alya said.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Lots of people cuddle. That’s not the problem. The problem is that I’ve probably ruined everything forever. I want to go back to being friends. I want things to be like they were where we were together without it being complicated, you know?” Marinette said.

“So not a good kiss then,” Alya said.

“What? That’s not what this is about,” Marinette said.

“Was it a good kiss?” Alya asked.

“Why do I talk to you? I am not dignifying that with a response,” she said.

“So a very good kiss,” Alya said.

“Ugh,” Marinette said instead of answering, “I’ve got to go.”

“Very very good. This is interesting. Just as you’re reconnecting with your high school crush. It’s all very dramatic. You should probably kiss him again. You need to kiss someone three times to be sure,” Alya said.

“You’re making that up,” Marinette said.

“True facts. Learned it when I moved into the dorms. Never take a boy home until you have had three test kisses,” Alya said.

“What kind of school do you go to that they teach you things like that in the dorms? I’m not kissing him again. I am not. I was temporarily insane and he will never forgive me as it is. I am not doing it again. And I am not looking for anyone to take home. Stop,” Marinette said.

“And you should probably take Adrien out for a test drive too. He’s probably kissed a lot fewer people than the magazines would have you think but inexperience doesn’t mean he won’t be good. There is a certain innate skill in kissing that people always discount,” Alya said.

“We’re talking about boys not cars, you don't test drive people,” Marinette said.

“Yes, boys are less predictable than cars which is why you want to do three test kisses and most cars only need one test drive,” Alya said.

“I have to go to a thing,” Marinette said.

“A kissing thing?” Alya asked.

“No,” Marinette said with a little too much force.

“If there is any kissing, I expect details, even if you won’t tell me mystery boy’s name,” Alya said.

“Whoops, bad connection, I’m losing you and never calling you back, bye!” Marinette hung up on Alya's laughter.


	15. The Rooftop

Ladybug was back in Paris and everybody knew. She was not hanging around after attacks to do interviews or smile for pictures but she was there. The attacks were coming thick and fast. In the three weeks since she had been back there had been ten of them. Adrien couldn't remember the last time there had been so many. It was exhausting but at the end of each battle, Ladybug put it all back the way it had been before. 

“What we need to do is find Hawkmoth,” Ladybug said after a battle with an Akuma whose name Chat hadn’t even figured out. He had used big fans to blow things around and it would have been comical if the things he was blowing around hadn’t been cars and buses and at least three vendor carts. Chat had been hit in the face with what he was pretty sure had been falafel. 

They were hidden away from the news crews wandering the streets looking for wreckage to report in front of but Ladybug was back and there was nothing for them to find. When she had been away, the news broadcasts had been far more sensational. Destruction and mayhem. Now they had to report from empty streets and cleaned up parks and buildings without holes. 

“We’ve tried everything,” Chat said without looking away from the street. 

“So we try again. We were kids then, it was a long time ago. Maybe if we release an Akuma and follow it back?” she suggested. 

They sat on a rooftop, her feet dangling and his tucked up under him like he really was a cat. The longer he spent as Chat Noir, the more he found himself doing things like that without thinking. He sat down properly and dropped his feet over the edge so they dangled beside hers. Her legs were so much shorter than his were, even her feet were little. He might have said something about her tiny bug feet but he knew she could kick his ass without trying so he kept his mouth shut.  

“You know why we can't do that. It'll just multiply until we're chasing butterflies all over the city and there's no way to find the right one to trace back,” Chat said. 

She sighed and stared out over the city. It had been a short battle. They had found their rhythm again and they were both better than they had been when they had been younger. 

“The rest of the world calls Paris a city under siege. People would be so excited or scared when I told them I grew up in Paris. It was like I grew up in an adventure novel or a war zone,” she said. 

"Two kinds of people, I guess," he said.

“It would be nice to have Paris actually be a safe place again,” she said. 

“It will be,” he said. 

“Such confidence, kitty cat,” she said. 

“Paris has you, has me, has us, that’s enough to be confident about,” he said. 

“And Paris has Hawkmoth,” she said with a hand wave at the city below them, “There are bad things the world over. Things like the Akuma but everywhere else they’re natural. Just like little bundles of evil that build up and get into a person. Rare and strange and awful but like a disease. They're no one's fault, really, not anymore than cancer is someone's fault. No where else has a monster who makes them.” 

“We’re just lucky,” Chat said. 

“You’re definition of lucky is different from mine,” she said. 

“If you let me take you home, we can talk about getting lucky,” he said. 

She snorted and shot him a look that was a little bit disgusted. He gave her his best roguish grin and raised an eyebrow. That comment was over the line but he'd said it and now he was going to have to deal with that. She stared back at him. She looked at him hard with her lips pressed together and her eyes just slightly narrowed. He remembered that she had kissed him once and it almost made the smile falter into something blushing and stammering. 

Then she laughed and braced a foot against his hip and her back against the chimney she had been leaning against. He raised both eyebrows in a question but then she finished bracing herself and grinned at him. He realized too late what she was doing. 

She kicked him off the ledge. 

There was a balcony below that he landed on in a heap, taking a flowerpot down with him and making the woman in the kitchen nearby scream. He attempted to put the pot back in place and tripped over a basket of washing waiting to either be hung out or taken in and nearly fell off the balcony again but he was laughing the entire time. 

Ladybug was gone by the time he got back onto the rooftop but when he got to the street and transformed back into himself, there was a text message on his phone, “That’s as lucky as you’re going to get.”

He typed up, “I’m the luckiest cat on the planet,” but didn’t send it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today we have a window into the editing process: "Chat had been hit in the face with what he was pretty sure had been falafel." What even are verb tenses? I have tried parsing this sentence, re-writing it, rewriting it again and you know what? This is what stays. *makes loud fart noise at editing process* (I still don't know if it is right. I honestly don't know. Are the clauses both past perfect? Should they be? Is "he was" the right tense? I have been staring at it too long. *chucks it into fire aka post and run*
> 
> I started a diploma program this week. During the transition it is leaving me with less mental energy for writing but hopefully once I settle, I'll be able to get back to regular writing time. I actually took this afternoon off to spend with my stories. It was a good idea. 
> 
> Also I know this scene is super short. I'm actually going to post two today (so you people who manage to read it as soon as it goes up, see you again in about a half hour for the other chapter). I couldn't combine the topics/settings and I refuse to cut this scene because I love her kicking him off the roof SO MUCH so two little chapters it is.
> 
> I am also wordy and attention seeking tonight so you get long rambley authors notes.


	16. The Lunch Buddies

His life had settled into some kind of normal. They were working their way through his collection of Akuma and the empty jars were piling up. He had started telling her in his little stream on consciousness text messages what he was going to collect instead: shiny rocks or stamps (but only one per jar) or earrings or - her suggestion - plush mice. 

Adrien’s days fell into a rhythm around all the time he was spending as Chat Noir. He didn’t sleep enough. He dragged his way through the math unit from hell only to have the next one be even harder and the project in his design class needed twice as much work as he had been planning for. The fall show had entered that strange period where everyone but the models were busy as bees and the models had nothing to do until the actual runway rehearsals started. But they were coming. Hours of rehearsals and makeup tests and slight reordering of who went first that threw everyone into a tailspin of bruised egos and debates on colour clashes. 

While he had the time, Adrien threw everything into school, trying to get as much done as he could before he lost what little was left of his free time to the winter show. 

“I still don’t know how you do it,” Nino said. They both had Tuesday afternoons off from classes and had started a tradition of meeting at a little restaurant between their campuses. They ate the kind of food the dietitians would have died to know that Adrien had even been in the same room as. 

“I’m only taking half of the course load. It’s going to take me four or five years to finish even with everything I take in the summer,” Adrien said waving a fry in the air. 

“Still, if I was filthy rich, I don’t think I’d bother with classes. You could spend all day playing video games and dating hot women, instead Calculus. Who takes Calculus if they have any other choices?” Nino pointed at Adrien’s pile of books. He had another class at four that afternoon. 

“I’d like to someday live on something other than my father’s legacy,” Adrien said. “And we both know you’d get bored a week into doing nothing but playing video games. You suck at video games.”

Nino had laughed at that and let the conversation go but it clung to Adrien sometimes. He could make his life easier if he let school go, even just for a few years and come back to it when he had more time. But a piece of him feared that he would never go back. If he stopped now, he’d never be anything but a model and then someday a former model. Only ever Gabriel’s son. 

His other lunch buddy never actually offered any advice on it but her very existence was a testament to not giving up. He didn’t need to go into the office as many days as he did but if he got there at 12:30, he could be almost guaranteed to find Marinette in the lunchroom. If she wasn’t in the lunchroom, she’d be up in one of the workrooms, figuring over some problem and forgetting she needed to eat. 

All he wanted was out of fashion and all she wanted was into it. 

“Alya tells me you’re studying engineering,” Marinette said. She sat on the stool behind a design table and ate the yogurt he had brought her. She sat well back from the table so there wasn’t any chance she could spill on the diagrams laid out there. 

“I started in engineering but it wasn’t really for me. All technical and nothing else. I’m in an architecture stream right now though it’ll probably take a masters if I ever want to work as an architect,” he said leaning against the table and eating a fruit salad. His dietitian was pleased with how many lunches he was eating on site, she thought he was taking his diet more seriously. He did not argue with her. He had a chocolate bar in his bag to eat as soon as he was sure no one would see him. 

“So the design thing runs in the family?” Marinette asked. 

“I guess so but buildings are different from clothes,” he said. 

“Not really,” she said and then she set her yogurt aside and spun back to the work table and made him turn around so she could explain jacket construction to him. He understood her point but he listened less because he cared about the diagrams in front of her than because he liked how much she cared about it. She had a dream and the internship under Stefan and Elijah hadn’t crushed it yet. 

“Are you excited for the big event?” he asked after conceding the point that clothing construction and building design weren’t so wildly different. He lingered to talk even though he was out of time and he was going to have to hop a bus or run as Chat Noir if he hoped to make it back to campus in time for class. 

The Gala wasn’t such a looming event when he had her coming with him. He’d been to enough events like that that they didn’t stress him out anymore. Marinette turned to look directly at him before fiddling with the papers on the table. She gathered them and tapped them into a nice neat stack and then started laying them out again. 

“I’m terrified and I’m going to trip and fall in the chocolate fountain,” she said. 

“You won’t. You’ll be incredible, charming and clever and everyone will love you,” he said waving off her concerns. She gave him one of those strange looks that he could never quite interpret. Almost like he had embarrassed her but not quite. He waved that off too and asked, “Can I see how the dress is coming?” 

“No,” she said. 

“Is this like a wedding day thing?” he asked with his best Chat Noir grin so she knew he was teasing. She narrowed her eyes at him. A little glare before she rolled her eyes. This was progress. They could be friends.

“No! It’s an it’s not finished thing,” she said, “I don’t have any time. I didn’t know when I signed up to be an intern that intern was a code word meaning human sewing machine. When the little signs on the programs at the winter show brag that everything is handmade in-house, they mean that I did it.” 

It started out as a complaint but she stopped and smiled down at the designs on the table and repeated it, “I did it. I made something that’s going to be on one of the biggest Paris runways. I didn’t design it but I made it. How many people can say that?” 

“Not many. And it’s going to be beautiful,” Adrien told her. He was late and couldn’t stay to watch her smile at her handiwork. 

“I hope so,” she said. 

“It will. We’re lucky to have you here,” he said. 

Before he left he gave her a one armed hug. She watched him go with that nearly embarrassed look on her face again. He waved from the door and tossed her his chocolate on the desk so she’d have something to eat when she forgot her next meal. That got him a smile to carry along with him while he rushed across the city. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See! Two chapters. 
> 
> I love me some Adrienette. Love love love.


	17. The Chase and the Race

"Meet me somewhere?" said the text. 

He was sitting with his homework when his phone buzzed and he almost didn't pick it up. He'd told everyone else to leave him alone but he hadn't sent that message to Ladybug. He sat with the phone in one hand and his pencil in the other. If he were responsible, he would have sent her something back asking if it was an emergency and put the phone away for anything but impending doom.  

They - well, he - had declared that certain days were off for the project to clear out the jars. She'd set a pace that had worried him in that first week, leaving her exhausted every time. This was one of their break days. It should have been enough to know that he would see her that weekend but it wasn't. His responsibility to his studies couldn’t outweigh the little thrill that she was inviting him someplace. It didn't matter where.

He sent, "Do you want to come here?"  

"No, I want to run, come with me," she sent. 

He dropped the pencil and flipped the book shut to go find Plagg.

Chat Noir met her not too far from his apartment. She was bouncing on her toes and flashed him just a hint of smile when he hopped up beside her in a crouch. She'd chosen one of the highest buildings in the district so Paris was spread out around them like a carpet of lights. He looked past her toward the Eiffel Tower and the lines of traffic, white and red running up the boulevards. She was still bouncing in the corner of his vision. He tilted his head back to look up at her. 

"Race or chase?" he asked. 

She gave him a real smile then. It hadn't been so long ago but it felt like a game they hadn't played since they were little children. It was like a pick-up game of soccer in one of the old cobblestone squares or brushing the dust off some box in a cupboard and opening it find treasures you had collected when you were small. They'd both been a little shorter then and she'd laughed more easily but just saying the words made him feel like not so much had changed. 

"Chase," she said. 

And then she was moving. She dropped and off the edge of the roof top and flung herself towards the street. He knew this neighbourhood better than she did so he let her get a little bit ahead of him. He hadn’t been betting on her yo-yo giving her that much of an advantage and it took him three blocks to just catch up with her.

She swung in and out of patches of light. He barely heard her when she touched down on rooftops. He almost lost her more than once only to catch a flash of red out of the corner of his eye and have to scramble after her.   
   
They were most of the way to Notre Dame before he caught up. He hit her out of the air as she made a jump from one rooftop to the next. He caught her around the middle but she didn't let go of the yo-yo string. They ended up hanging halfway down an alley, swinging wildly back and forth with him latched around her waist. He had a landing planned out but it had depended on her just jumping. The damned string had thrown everything off. 

“Damn cat,” she said looking down at him.  

He cocked a grin at her. His arms were locked around her waist which put his face right at chest level and gave him very interesting things to look past as he met her gaze. With her free hand she cuffed him up the back of his head but it was gentle and made him wiggle an eyebrow at her.  

She was laughing as she lowered them down behind a florist. He touched down first and took her weight rather than just letting her drop down beside him.  He held her and waited for her to step back but she just stayed there in his arms with her hands on his shoulders and his around her waist. 

"You're slower than you used to be," she said. 

"You're fur-ster," he shot back. 

"Fur-ster?" she repeated, "For that one I am going to make you chase again." 

"I could chase you forever," he said and standing in the dark like this, with his arms around her, it felt a little too honest. She was all shadows, he couldn't see her expression but she had her head tilted up to look at him. 

"Give me a head start then," she finally said. 

"I'll count to nine. One for each life I'd spend with you," he said. 

"You've gotten even sappier in your old age," she said. 

"One," he said lowering his face to hers but by the time he got to, "Two," she was off and running again. 

It took him longer to find her this time. They played it less as a game of tag and more of hide and seek. He'd flick open the communicator to make hers beep and then follow the sound. Like a complicated rooftop game of Hotter or Colder. He heard her swear once but she'd disappeared before he found her. 

"Where are you, Bug?" he called out but he got no answer but he heard her footsteps down an alley. He used the baton to jump the building and landed in her way as she exited out into the square. She was glancing behind her when he caught her. He picked her up and spun her around. She struggled and kicked him hard in the leg before she realized it was him. 

He dropped her back to the ground and glared down at her, rubbing his shin. 

"Gentlemen don't grab ladies in the street," she said. 

"You may be a Lady, I never made any such claims about myself," he said. 

"Again? We can trade," she said. 

"As much as I like chasing you around Paris, you're supposed to be taking the night off," he said. 

"I'd rather run around Paris," she said with a sigh. 

"What's wrong?" he asked. 

She looked up at him. The square around the cathedral was well lit but not well traveled at this time of night. They would have been visible to anyone walking by but he would have taken that over not being able to see her. Her expression was accusatory. She had wanted to drown whatever it emotion it was and she wasn't happy to have him dragging it out into the open. He started to back peddle immediately, hands up and a big step back from her. 

"Or I shut up," he said. 

"I had a fight with my mother," she admitted after a drawn out silence in which he was sure he'd made her angry.  

"I will listen or I will knock you off another building with an ill-timed pounce, your choice," he said. 

"Come on," she said and then she was off across the square. He followed her, she wasn't moving fast enough for it to be another chase. She led him up to the church but not inside. Instead she climbed up the side of the Cathedral. They helped each other up, yo-yo and baton out so the could swinging along to hand holds until they had made it to the belfry. She dropped down on the ledge and when he sat beside her, she leaned over and put her head on his shoulder. 

"Talking then?" he said. 

"In a minute," she said. 

She took his hand and played with his fingers and his claws. Her fingers traced the outline of them. It was shattering and he couldn't quite figure out why. It made him jumpy and nervous. They were sharp and he'd never been quite so aware of them before. He watched her fingers on his and kept his attention on breathing and trying not to do something unwelcome. Like kiss her. He was trying really hard not to pull her in and kiss her until neither of them could breathe. 

"My father died," she said without looking up at him. His attention snapped back to her. Her fingers were still on his, fiddling with his ring and his claws like it was a nervous tic, like he was an extension of her instead of something separate.

"I-" he started but he didn't know. Adrien knew. Chat Noir didn't, "I'm so sorry." 

"In the fires on that day," she spit the word day out like it was an insult. He gently pulled his nearer hand away from her and wrapped it around her back. He gave her his other hand instead and she took it without pause and fiddled with his cuffs as she kept talking. 

"My mother thinks Paris is dangerous. Terribly dangerous. It's why we left. She wouldn't stay in the city. She wouldn't even stay in the country. We lost the family business. She didn't think we had any reasons to stay in the country. She decided that we would go to live with my aunt. I argued and fought and I think I broke her heart a little more with it. So I apologized and tried to make the best of it. I couldn't stay in France alone and I couldn't leave her," she said. 

"She wants you to come home," he said. 

"I had her convinced that for my career, I needed to be in Europe and I didn't want to leave her behind. I had talked her into Milan. I thought maybe, with time, I could convince her to move to Cannes and then maybe Lyon, someplace that's just a train ride away," she said. 

That didn't seem like it would get her upset enough to be calling him up in the middle of the night. He rubbed her shoulder and waited for her to assemble the next part of the story. 

"There were three Akuma attacks this week and she's sure that means that the city is about to fall into riots and horrors and I will die if I stay here. That isn't new. But she reminded me in detail today about how I can't rely on superheroes to protect me. 'We both know that Ladybug is no guarantee,' and even though I have heard her say it a hundred times before, it's a reminder every time. She's right and I hate it," she had trailed off to a whisper.  

"You're not perfect," he said and he swung around on the ledge so he was straddling the stone and could take her face in his hands. She flinched hard as though hearing him say it was a betrayal all on its own. He was an idiot but he shook his head and slid a little closer and whispered, "Look at me." 

"I know, trust me, I know," she said meeting his eyes and looking at him with wary eyes. She was annoyed or maybe that expression was betrayal and his mind was spinning to try and fix it. He loosened his hold so she could pull away and while she had tensed, she let him touch her. He took a deep breath and stroked her cheek right below the mask before he started to speak. 

"You were just a kid, all the super powers in the world don't change that. You were in high school and you have saved hundreds of lives. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. You are not perfect, there are limits to everything even your powers, but you are incredible," he said. 

"Miraculous?" she said with a wry little smile that didn't make it to her eyes. 

"That too," he said leaning in and touching his forehead to hers before he drew back and kept talking. Now that he started he wasn't sure where the words were going to stop. "You got up after a tragedy like that and you kept fighting. There's a monster of a man out there who wants to steal your miracle stone, who's willing to burn a city to the ground to steal that power and you don't give up. That’s incredible. You’re very impressive. Grief makes people angry and so does worry. She loves you and she’s worried about you but no matter what she says, it doesn’t make any of this your fault.”

“You got through all of that without a single pun,” she said.  

“I am capable of restraining them,” he said. 

“Thank you,” she said, “For all of that, for coming out with me, not just for the lack of puns.” 

She surprised him again by curling back in close. Her arm around his waist, her knees tossed over his so she was halfway into his lap. She looked out at the city and rested her cheek on his shoulder again. His hands fluttered because he didn’t know where to put them. She reached out and took one of them back and linked her fingers with his. He held on and wrapped his other arm around her back, exactly the way she was holding onto him because if she had started it, he could be sure that it was something she was comfortable with. 

He didn’t pull away until she did. It was a long time, but it didn’t feel long enough. The traffic had dwindled down to almost nothing as most people had gone home to bed. He could have stayed there until dawn but instead she untangled herself slowly. Before she had moved out of his reach, while her hand was still on his back and her fingers were still tangled with his, she paused to meet his eyes. 

The moment was a soap bubble and he wasn’t thinking. She was so close. He leaned his head down, his nose bumped hers before he realized what he was doing but by then she’d taken over. Her mouth came up to touch his. The bubble held, it wasn’t really a kiss yet, neither of them quite sure enough to change it. 

“This is a bad idea,” she whispered. 

“I like bad ideas,” he said.

They hadn’t pulled away, she was still breathing against his mouth. He felt her form each word but it was a feather light near touch and he wanted so much more than that. He also wanted to pour out promises and reassurances and declarations of every possible kind. He wanted the kiss. 

“I’m using you,” she said. 

“Well, I’m taking advantage,” he shot back. 

“Bad idea,” she said. 

“So are rooftop chases and breaking and entering into religious landmarks. We’re full of bad ideas tonight,” Chat told her and that she was still there, so close. She wasn't pushing back or pulling away made him bolder and he managed to whisper, “Kiss me?” even if it did come out like a question. She answered him without words. 

She didn’t kiss him gently this time.

Her hand slid up his back and wrapped around his neck and she pulled him in close. He liked the taste of her mouth and pushed back into every touch. He still had enough of a hold on her to swing her into his arms. He was sitting on the parapet and hadn’t considered what pulling her closer meant. She didn’t seem to mind. She settled onto his lap without breaking the kiss and he grabbed hold of her waist. 

It felt precarious and he was struck by the fear of dropping her. She and loosely wrapped her legs around him and he could imagine her crossing her ankles somewhere behind his back. He kept one arm locked around her but the other slid up her back until he could play with her hair. He stopped there because she’d opened her mouth and pulled him into a deeper kiss and he temporarily lost the ability for all other thought. Her tongue against his made him smile so much it was hard to kiss her back. She gave up on him with a giggle and kissed his cheek, his jaw, his neck instead. 

“I need to go home,” she said when she’d kissed her way back up to his ear and was resting with her cheek against his and her whole body wrapped around him.  

“But you’re coming back tomorrow,” he said. 

“No, you told me you had some sort of event tomorrow,” she said. 

“Damn it,” he muttered. Gala. Stupid awful charity gala. That’s why he was supposed to spend tonight doing homework because he would have to spend all of Friday night with his father and the fashion industry. He buried his face in her shoulder and made an annoyed sound. 

“Day after,” she said. 

“That is barely tolerable,” he said. 

“You’re the one with the event,” she said. 

“Rub it in, why don’t you?” he said and even with his mounting annoyance at the prospect of twenty four hours without seeing her, he was giddy. The Gala would be fine, he’d have Marinette to distract him from all the awful people and provide excuses for him to duck out of networking opportunities. Everything would be fine. He had his arms full of reasons that everything would be fine. 

He tilted her chin up and pulling her into place so he could kiss her again, quick and smiling. 

“Shall I walk you home?” he asked. 

“So chivalrous! No, but I’ll race you back to yours,” she said with a mischievous grin. She wormed her way out of his grip and dropped over the edge of their perch. Of course she landed on a lower level without even wavering. His worry over dropping her had been completely unfounded. She leaned her elbow on a gargoyle's head and looked up at him to be sure he was following then she was off and running again. 

He stared after her for too long before he realized he was going to lose any chance of catching up. He scrambled after her with an unshakable smile plastered across his face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was no where in my outline. I was having a conversation with Gidge about Mari leaving and realized I hadn't really laid it out so I started writing a conversation that went into that a little more. There will eventually be another one where we get into what she told him in that letter and what she's been thinking for the last 5 years. 
> 
> But still, ANGST, fluffy idiots playing tag, I got to look at so many pictures of Notre Dame to get this situated in my head and then I had no intention of there being kissing. I was planning on drawing out Adrien's angsty pining and wondering if the kiss was a one time thing but then I was writing and the kissing happened so I left it in because it made me happy and it's been like five chapters since there was any kissing, that's too long. 
> 
>  
> 
> ~~I would say we're about two thirds done at this point for those of you keeping score at home.~~
> 
>  
> 
> "HA! You thought!" says June Me, to January Me, more like just shy of one third. This isn't even halfway through.


	18. The Limo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is all dialogue but I had a lot of fun writing it.

Half the point of a charity gala was the opportunity to show off. Black tie always looked the same but at least it looked good. He had hired a car and was now leaning against the side of it outside a dormitory of a school he didn't attend. Showing off was the point of the gala but standing here, as people walked by on their way to class and gawked, it was awkward. 

He signed two autographs before he decided to give up and hide in the car. Marinette wasn't ready because he'd come to pick her up early rather than sit around in the apartment, thinking about Ladybug and trying not to ruin his suit. Not that sitting in his apartment and thinking about Ladybug wasn't wonderful but if he didn't force himself to think of other things then he would just spend the entire night wrapped up in memories and his rampant imagination. 

His phone rang and he picked it up without looking at the screen. 

"Good evening, M. Agreste," the voice on the other end of the line said. 

"Hello," he said frowning. The voice was familiar but the words were too formal to be who he thought it was. 

"I need you to help me with a project," she said. 

"Did you really just call me Monsieur Agreste?" he asked smiling at the closed window between the driver and himself. His face was reflected back in the dark glass. He looked older than he expected. He looked a little too much like his father. He wanted to run his hands through his carefully styled hair until he had erased any evidence of Gabriel. Alya laughed in his ear, distracting him from that train of thought. Alya was a person who thrived on text messages and blog posts. It was rare to get an actual phone call from her.

"I did, I wanted to start off with the right tone of respect and seriousness," Alya said. 

"I, unfortunately do not know who Ladybug is," he said. 

"Not the goal of this particular project. This particular project is all about Mlle. Dupain-Cheng," Alya said. 

"She's your best friend, Alya," he said. 

"And you probably see her more than I do because she does nothing but work and you do nothing but work and you work at the same place. She will tell me nothing and so I need spies. You are now my spy," Alya said. 

"I am not accepting a spy job," he said and then hesitated. Curiosity was gnawing at his mind. Maybe he was too much a cat for his own good. He sighed. "What kind of spying are you looking for?"

"I need to know who she's been kissing," Alya said. 

Adrien coughed, that was not what he had been expecting, "She hasn't mentioned anyone to me."

"So it isn't you then?" Alya said. 

"What? No. Marinette and I are not like that, I spend as much time kissing her as I spend kissing you. Which - unless I got a lot drunker than I thought at Nino's this summer - is not all," he said. 

"You got pretty drunk but not that drunk. I would have taken pictures and sold them to TMZ if you had tried to kiss me. Remember that," Alya said. 

"This is why our love will never last, Al," he sighed dramatically and she laughed at him. He glanced out the window and said, "I've got to go." 

"If you find out anything, I will be forever grateful if you tell me, enjoy your fancy party!" Alya said. 

He had seen Marinette coming down the steps and fumbled to hang up on Alya and put his phone away. She had a long jacket on so he couldn't see what she had done to the dress but she had done her hair up in some kind of fancy ponytail so it fell in waves over her shoulder. He climbed out of the car before the driver did. A few people were standing around and he ignored them. 

She was blushing a little bit and he let himself wonder about this hypothetical boy who had been kissing her. She hadn't mentioned anyone but he shouldn't have been so surprised. She was adorable and motivated and that kind of smart that snuck up on you. He tried to imagine the type of person she'd fall for. Someone clever and kind and probably handsome. 

"Why did you bring a limo?" she hissed when she got closer.  

"Hello, Marinette, you look lovely," he said through a grin. 

"People are staring," she said. 

"It's because we're both beautiful. You more than me," he said with a wink, "And we can't pull up to the Gala in a rented Fiat. I don't think they'd even valet park it. They'd just push it into the river and claim they were doing us a favour."

He bowed and opened the door. She gave him a tight lipped glance that was almost a glare before getting inside. He sat down across from her and she looked around the car with wide eyes. It was nice even by the standards of limos. He was showing off and her reaction made it worth it. He leaned back against his seat and reached out a foot to kick open the little fridge. 

“I am not drinking before I get there, I cry when I’m drunk and I’m wearing enough makeup right now that I can’t risk it,” Marinette said. 

“Welcome to my life,” he said, “No emotion or you’ll mess up the makeup. And my dietitian would probably be displeased that I was sitting this close to a bottle of wine. Do you know how many calories there are in wine?” 

She studied him as the car started to move. She was all black and white except for those blue eyes. The black jacket and a pair of little black heels but her skin was pale. Her hair was dark enough that in the imperfect light of the limousine it blended into her clothing. 

He gave her a Chat Noir grin, the kind that Ladybug would punch him for. He was expecting another glare but instead, in one fluid motion, she leaned over pulled out the first bottle she could reach and dropped down on the seat beside him. 

“Do you think the dietitian has an invitation?” she asked.

“I doubt it,” he said. 

“Then let’s break some rules, let the make up run,” she said. 

“Are you having a rebellious day?” he asked. 

“Yes, I suppose I am,” she said. She leaned over and poured him a glass of some white wine and held it out. He took it carefully, without touching her fingers. She turned back and poured herself one as well and then sat back beside him to take a sip. She did dainty surprisingly well for someone he had seen fall up the stairs on more than one occasion. 

“Tell me about this rebellion,” he said. 

 She cut her eyes to him. They were rolling along through rush hour traffic and her campus was far from their destination. He could see the cars moving by through the window behind her. The glass was tinted. No one could see them and it was a little like having their own little bubble where the rest of the world couldn’t affect them. 

“Do you think you know what you want?” she asked. 

“Some days but mostly no, I have no idea,” he said. 

“I thought I knew exactly what I wanted. I had my career planned out, I had picked myself out a husband and even if we hadn’t gone on a date yet, I thought I was sure,” he laughed at that and she shot him a glare over her wine glass but it was more self deprecating than annoyed. “I had already decided what colour I would paint the bathroom in my first house, I knew exactly what I wanted.”

She fell silent for a moment before looking out the window and continuing, “And even after everything that happened, even after moving away, I was still sure that my plan was the best one and everything else was secondary. Then I came back and the other thing, the one  I thought I didn’t want was waiting for me. The life and the person I thought were just responsibility was right there and I had missed it so much.”

“Is this about the person Alya says you’ve been kissing?” he asked. 

She sputtered into her wine. 

“Sorry,” he said, “I think it was meant to be a secret.”

She pulled out her phone and typing one handed, shot off a text message. He didn’t have a good enough angle to see what she said but he could guess. It probably involved calling Alya some sort of name. Once the phone had binged to tell her that it had successfully sent, she turned off the sound on the phone and shoved it into her purse. 

“Yes, it is about him and no I won’t give either of you horrible gossip mongers any details,” Marinette said.

“Is he jealous you have a date tonight?” he asked. 

“I thought this wasn’t a date. You’re the one who said it wasn’t a date. What about that girl you like to send dirty text messages too?” she asked. 

“She probably wouldn’t be jealous unless she saw you, you are truly beautiful tonight,” he said raising eyebrow. 

She blushed at him and some of her tension came back. She had relaxed once they’d started talking and there wasn’t anyone to stare at her and wonder if she was someone famous but now her shoulders were drawn in again and she had stopped looking at him. It had seemed like a harmless comment until he had made it. Why was it only with Marinette that he was incapable of keeping a conversation going? 

She shook off the nervousness and took another drink of her wine before she looked back at him. She tilted her head rather than turning around and it was adorable. 

“You’re cuter than he is but he still doesn’t have a good reason for being jealous,” she said. 

“I don’t know whether the correct response to that is to feel flattered or to be disappointed,” he said. 

Marinette elbowed him and they both laughed. He pulled out his phone and made a show of angling himself so that she couldn’t see the screen. He said, “If you’re keeping secrets, I’ll tell you nothing,” as he sent Ladybug a message. It didn’t really say anything. A joke about pawtographs and not much else. He didn’t get a response back but it was nice just to know he could reach out to her while they were apart. 

“Is this party going to be fun?” Marinette asked, pulling him back into the conversation. 

“Probably not but the food will be fantastic and I’ll make sure to introduce you to the guys who work for Chanel. If it’s Yvette and Martin, and it’s usually them who come to these things, they’ll make the price of admission worth it. They’re hilarious,” he said. 

"Just like that, an introduction to the guys who work for Chanel," she said in a mocking tone. 

"Stick with me and I'll see if I can't wrangle Armani and Dior as well though the last man I met from Dior tried to seduce me and it wasn't very successful so I'm not on the best terms with that house," he said. 

She giggled and asked in a petulant voice, "Are we there yet?”

“No, have more wine,” he said. 

It made her laugh again but she didn’t pour another glass. They rode the rest of the way across the city, shoulder to shoulder and teasing each other for keeping secrets. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School is in full swing and kicking my ass, and I'm waiting on results from an interview and I struggle to write through stress but once we catch up to everything I've already written (I'm a good 10 000 words ahead but nothing I have written is the NEXT chapter), updates will even out for a little while. 
> 
> I'm going to try for once a week but I am not going to make any promises.


	19. The Gala

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We will be binge posting today. So things will go up as they're edited. I jumped ahead and wrote a whole bunch of stuff and we've finally reached it. My tumblr buddies have decided they'd rather have a big lump of chapters instead of regular updates. So here is where the big lump of updates begins.

Adrien had a glass of champagne in one hand and a smile on his face. He'd left Marinette with a junior designer from one of the smaller fashion houses and was watching her from a distance. She had been too comfortable letting him talk when he'd been dragging her around during the cocktail reception. So he had made an excuse and gotten out of the way after making sure that Jacqueline knew that Marinette had designed the dress herself. 

It was a good dress. Not too daring but very different. It didn't look anything like the original dress that she had taken home. It was purely hers and it suited her. Cute and flirty with surprising details like the lace she had added in place of the previous collar. She was radiant, especially when the conversation turned to something she was passionate about. She had been talking some specific detail of fabrics in the Valentino line when he left her. 

The Gala was held in a chateau outside the city. Every detail was opulent. The bright lights and elaborate glass and metal center pieces weren’t quite in keeping with the surroundings but it was beautiful. Adrien didn’t know if the building was an imitation or something that had actually been built during the reign of the Sun King. He was trying to figure it out from the arches around the ballroom. He didn’t know a lot about historic construction but he knew enough about modern design to be pretty sure the building wasn’t new. 

"You never get to call me ‘jackass’ ever again," Liam said coming to stand beside him. He tore his attention away from the walls and stood up a little straighter. He put on his Adrien-the-Model smile even though it was just Liam. He did not want to slip too far away from charming or he was going to say something rude to his father or one of his father's horrible friends.

"You're the sacrificial lamb this year?" Adrien asked, ignoring the comment. 

"You, me, Nadine and Orla," Liam said, "We're the walking advertisements for this year's event. It's a good thing we're pretty."

"It is," Adrien said. 

Liam's accent hadn't improved and in this room full of people putting trying so hard it was almost comforting to hear him butcher his vowels. French wasn't really a language intended for Irish inflection but Liam didn't let that stop him. He could probably live in Paris for fifty years and still be nearly unintelligible. Adrien cracked a grin at him. 

"There are rules about bringing interns to events," Liam said. 

"There aren't actually. I had a plus one invitation, I could have brought my cousin or put a hobo in a dress if I really wanted to. She's better company than either of those options," Adrien said. 

"Not written rules, just rules," Liam said. 

"See how much I care," Adrien said drawing a circle around his face with a single finger. 

He kept his expression intentionally flat. He was the boss's kid and that had always meant that one of the unwritten rules was that he only got polite invitations. He got invited to team building events but not out to the bar afterwards. He wasn't really a member of the little cadre that made up the in-house models. He knew most of the unwritten rules but was pretty sure that they didn't really apply to him. 

"The other interns are going to eat her alive for this," Liam said. 

That, Adrien hadn't considered. He'd invited her for purely selfish reasons. He hadn't wanted to attend this party alone or worse, with Chloe hanging off his arm and waving at the paparazzi. He hadn’t stopped to think how much of an advantage this was for Marinette. It went well above the scope of the intern program. The interns were a competitive group. Most of them didn’t like other people being granted things that they couldn’t have.

“Hello little Intern,” Liam said and Adrien snapped his attention back to see that Marinette had come over to join them. She gave Liam one of her big friendly smiles and Adrien pushed his worries to the side. 

If anyone deserved this particular advantage it was her. 

“Shall we go find our table?” Adrien asked holding out his arm before her small talk with Liam could stray to topics of conversation he didn’t want her to have to put up with. 

She gave him an entirely different kind of smile as she looped her arm through his and let him pull her away. Her smiles shone like spotlights for most people but he only ever got them in flashes. He studied her as they walked. She was scanning the crowd, looking over the clothes and marveling a little bit. 

He didn’t realize what he was doing until he’d leaned over and kissed her temple.

Everything froze. 

What was that? 

Why had he done that?

She was adorable and wonderful but that wasn’t an excuse. 

She stopped walking and it tugged him to a stop too. 

She looked up at him, startled and pretty and confused and he had nothing to say. He'd forgotten how to speak as well as how to behave.  

“Adrien, you haven’t introduced your girlfriend yet,” a voice interrupted the way she was staring up at him with wide alarmed eyes. She put her smile back on and turned to look at the speaker. Adrien smoothed his own emotions off his face to turn and smile at his father. 

“Marinette, I’m sure you’ve met my father, Gabriel Agreste. Father, this is Marinette Dupain-Cheng, she’s been an intern at your company for two months now,” Adrien said. He bit down hard on his tongue and tried for a close lipped smile. He was digging himself into another lecture on how sarcasm was not proper behaviour in public. 

Marinette giggled and it was charming enough that even Gabriel gave her a smile. It wasn’t a warm smile but his lips lifted. Adrien wanted to kiss her again. He ignored that thought. Buried it. He squeezed her hand where it was still resting on his arm instead. 

“I do believe Adrien had mentioned that he was going to lend you one of my gowns. Evidently not. Who are you wearing?” Gabriel said. 

Emotions crisscrossed Marinette’s face, surprise, pride, something like terror. She didn’t say anything for just a moment too long. 

“It’s one of her own,” Adrien said, “She really is very good.”

Marinette beamed through a brief conversation on composition and detailing that Adrien wasn’t really paying attention to. She held onto him with one hand and talked with her other. She gestured and grinned and stumbled through some praise of the winter line. Gabriel was serious but seemed to actually be listening to her. He didn’t often to listen to anyone who wasn’t one of his senior designers and it felt like thin ice. 

“I promised Mari that I would introduce her to Wilhelmina before dinner,” Adrien said before Gabriel could throw one of his dismissive lines at Marinette. Crushing that smile on her face would be unforgivable and Adrien was pretty sure his father wouldn’t even notice that he had done it. 

The distraction of the little conversation seemed to have swept Adrien’s kiss completely out of her mind. She didn’t mention it as she rehashed the conversation. It was easy for him to forget that Gabriel Agreste was a well respected industry leader and seeing him through Marinette’s eyes was a little unsettling. Magazine editors and cronies liked Gabriel, Marinette was supposed to be too reasonable and kind for that.

“So who is Wilhelmina?” Marinette asked. 

“Oh, I didn’t actually mean that. You don’t want to meet Wilhelmina,” he said. 

Marinette, being Marinette, was not to be dissuaded which is how they ended up being harangued by a ninety year old woman wearing couture from the 1950s until the lights dimmed to call everyone to their seats. Marinette tried to keep up her side of the conversation but Wilhelmina didn’t so much converse as drive a verbal steamroller. She just talked over any and everyone. 

“That was an experience,” Marinette whispered as they headed for their table. 

“Rite of passage,” Adrien said, “Most people meet her at their first show. She spends oceans of money on clothing and so do all her friends but only if she likes you. People are always pouring flattery on her.”

“Did she like me?” Marinette asked. 

“No idea. No one can actually tell until you suddenly get a check for half a million worth of runway originals,” Adrien said with a laugh.

“This is the least sensible industry on the planet, I’m going to go back to school and become a pastry chef. Baked goods make sense,” Marinette said. 

“You’d probably be good at that too. I bet you’d make those fancy cakes that look like art. You're good at making normal things into art like hats or dresses,” he said. 

“I am not that good,” she said. 

“My father couldn’t pick out that dress as one of his. He can always pick out one of his,” Adrien said, “Besides, you got into this intern program. Our house isn’t a part of most of the placement agencies. Your portfolio is picked over by the senior design staff. You’re good at fashion and you’d be good at baking and you’d probably be good at auto repair if you decided to do auto repair.”

She flashed that smile at him and then looked away at the center piece on the table, “Thank you. I know how difficult it is to get in at Agreste. I know how luck I am. I wasn’t actually even eligible. Agreste doesn’t take internationals. Ever. I didn’t even submit directly here. I think the only reason I got it is because I’m a French citizen and one of the interviewers I met with must have a friend here. I had my heart set on a few houses in New York. I didn’t think I’d get anywhere in Europe, certainly not Paris. They even agreed to pay my flight or I never would have been able to come.” 

“Paris is glad to have you home,” he said.

Whatever she was going to say next was lost in a crash. 

Before Adrien had even processed what had happened or where the noise had come from, a hand closed on his shoulder. He had stood, lots of people had, Parisians knew what unexpected crashes and distant screaming meant. Marinette was there beside him. Calm. He vaguely remembered that from school. She was always calm as the monsters descended. 

"Come with me," a gruff familiar voice said. 

Adrien looked up at the same body guard he'd had as a kid. It had caused a fight when he had started refusing to keep a guard first anywhere near his apartment then at university, then anywhere he went. Having the big gorilla standing there behind him was almost nostalgic. Inconvenient because it was unlikely Ladybug would hear about this until it was over so he was going to have to deal with it on his own, but still it was nice to see the man. 

"How have you been? How's the wife?" he asked. 

"No time for jokes, M. Agreste, it is best if we get you out of here," Gorilla said. 

"Would you like to be evacuated with me? It's a tradition in...." he asked turning to Marinette. 

Marinette was gone. 

The crowd had started moving. Adrien could see a pink glow down the hall and whatever Akuma was there was headed towards them. She must have gotten swept into the crowd. He turned, pulling out of the bodyguard's grip and hopped up onto his chair to see where she had gone. Black hair, pink dress, small. She wasn't going to be easy to pick out but he wasn't going to leave her in this crowd as a monster advanced on her. 

Gorilla grabbed him by the back of his fancy suit jacket and yanked him back to earth. He forgot that being tall didn't mean he wasn't scrawny enough to be yanked around by someone bigger than him. He stumbled as Gorilla turned them both into the crowd and started to steer him away from the trouble. Gorilla did not let go. He had learned from years of chasing a teenage Adrien that Adrien disappeared in times of trouble if he was released for even a moment. 

"Do you see my date?" he asked Gorilla in a conversational tone as he was frog marched towards the door.

"No sir," Gorilla said. 

"Think we could pause and go find her?" he asked. 

"You need to be taken to safety, those are my orders," he said. 

Adrien sighed. That meant he was going to have to get creative. They were out of the main hall now and into the massive entry way of the chateau. It was packed with people pushing for the doors. Akuma attacks didn't happen this far out of the city, no one had been expecting it and everyone was panicking. They were a long way from help. 

Pink lightning smashed into the window by the front door and everyone screamed as the glass shattered, even Adrien jumped. The security guards scattered and then scrambled into some kind of formation but they were not going to be any good in this. A bolt of that pink lightning hit a guard and they froze in a pose. 

It was almost funny. 

The same thing happened to another, then another, then a woman in a black silk gown and it got less funny very quickly. Adrien managed to pivot far enough in Gorilla's hold to see the Akuma itself. He wasn't close enough for details, pink and turquoise and a ridiculous feathered thing on his head but he was recognizable. 

"Seriously? Liam?" he said aloud. 

"Move," Gorilla lurched him back into the crowd moving towards the exit. 

They hadn't made it to the door before the Akuma came swinging sideways over their heads and smashed into the brick work above the window. Adrien winced even though he knew Liam wouldn't remember it later. The crowd was thinning as more people made it outside. As they reached the door someone crashed into Gorilla hard enough that he loosened his hold on Adrien enough that Adrien could twist and drop and leave the man holding nothing but his suit jacket. 

"Sorry," he muttered as he rolled away.  

He moved sideways across the crowd, weaving and dodging around people and the frozen posers. Plagg had been in his jacket and was now floating along at his heels. In the chaos, he wouldn't be seen. Probably. Hopefully. Adrien was looking for a corner or a hallway to duck into. An old building like this should have had servant's entrances and passageways and all kinds of old corners but the space was too big and he was struggling against the dregs of the crowd. 

He looked back up at the Akuma in time to see Ladybug swing off the chandelier and kick him square in the chest. Liam pinwheeled back into the ballroom in a blur of bubblegum colours. She landed not too far from Adrien and he spun and took those two extra steps to be beside her. It was automatic. He didn't even consider that he wasn't Chat. Plagg crawled into his pant leg and sat on his shoe and Adrien could just imagine the grumbling. 

She turned to him with the start of a smile and he realized that she had assumed he was Chat as well. She blinked at him twice in surprise. 

"Do you come to fashion galas often?" he asked. 

"This is my first one, actually. Get outside before he gets back on his feet," she said. 

But Liam was already coming at them again and Ladybug grabbed Adrien and swung them both up onto the grand staircase. She shouldn't have been able to lift him, it had been difficult for Gorilla to do but she had the magic of the transformation on her side. She put him down and physically jerked him around until he was facing a hallway of rooms behind a velvet rope that read: "no admittance beyond this point." She gave him a little shove in the middle of the back. 

"Go," she said. 

"Pendant," he said catching her wrist before she could swing away.

"What?" she turned half her attention back to him but she was watching for the Akuma and didn't really look at him. 

"Liam always wears a pendant, that's probably where the butterfly is," he said. 

"Right, ok, now go," she gently pulled herself out of his hold and then shoved him toward the empty hallway again. He ducked under the rope and took off down the hall at a run. He winced at every echoing sound from the battle as he shouldered open a door and barged into a little sitting room. 

"Plagg," he said. 

"I just had to be near your disgusting feet and you promised me those little cheese balls-"  Plagg started but Adrien ignored him. Plagg sighed heavily before the transformation began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladrien moments! 
> 
> This is not fan-art of this scene but there is a reason that I tagged it "get out of my brain" because it is very nearly this chapter. 
> 
> http://ashesandhoney.tumblr.com/post/138052486006/moeskine-ladybug-step-back-i-got-this#disqus_thread


	20. The Garden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Binge chapter #2

Chat Noir took the long way around, dropping down into the ballroom from a second floor balcony to find that the fight had fallen silent. He snapped his head around. It wasn't over. She hadn't fixed anything yet. There were still over turned tables and a few members of the crowd who had been caught before they had reached the foyer were still holding their poses. The quiet was eerie. He headed for the entrance and it was quiet there too. 

What had happened?

Where was she?

He heard a yell from outside and vaulted the broken glass to exit through the window. On the lawn, the party goers had scattered into the gardens and towards the car park but a pack stood posed together. They'd been caught before they could make it too far. Adrien recognized Orla among them though most were strangers. He ran past them to find an Italian garden full of statuary. Mixed into the replica Davids and Greek Gods were party guests who had chosen the wrong place to hide. 

“Missed me, pretty boy,” he heard Ladybug’s voice and his heart rate slowed. If she was fine, then everything was fine. 

He scampered up onto a nearby statue of Poseidon and balanced on the head to see where exactly the fight was happening. The flash of lightning told him where to go and he dropped to the ground and ran. She had led the Akuma away from most of the people that that also limited her options. The yo-yo couldn’t swing her away when she had nothing higher than a six foot statue of some dead noble to attach it to. 

He came up behind the Akuma and swept his feet out from under him. Before he could grab hold of the pendant, he had to lurch back from another bolt of that lightning. He skipped backwards as the pink fashion disaster climbed it it's feet.

“You got here fast,” Ladybug said as he fell into step beside her. 

“I can hear at a catastrophe from a mile away,” he said. 

She shook her head at the pun and said, “Go left.” 

He didn’t go left. What she said and what she meant were not the same thing. It was a short hand they’d developed as they had been working out all the time apart. Multiple attacks a week meant lots of time to practice. The code was his favourite part. It meant they could talk strategy in front of a grandstanding Akuma without giving anything away. Left didn't mean left, regroup didn't mean regroup, applesauce was never something an Akuma wanted to hear. 

He charged at Liam with his baton spinning and then feinted right. The Akuma turned to follow him and Ladybug caught him around the ankles with the yo-yo. It should have been the end of the fight. He went down hard and all she needed to do was pull him in and grab the pendant. 

If they moved fast enough, it would have been fine. But Liam sat up. She dragged him in but he was warming up another bolt of that lightning. He could see it and he wasn't sure if Ladybug could. There were better strategic choices but Chat went with the quickest possible solution. 

It was an easy decision. 

She couldn’t get hit. 

She might have been fast enough to dodge it but it wasn’t a risk he could take. He used the baton as a lever and and flung himself onto the Akuma’s lap. Ladybug now had two people to pull over grass and cobblestones and it slowed her down. She was yelling his name but he already had a hold of the pendant. 

The shock of the lightning hit him in the side and the last thought he had was to clench his hand tight but then everything went black.

 

* * *

 

He woke up dizzy lying on his back. He blinked up at the night sky for a moment and couldn’t quite remember why he had fallen asleep outside. There were stars. Not too many. It was too bright this close to the city for a real spread of stars but enough to be pretty. What had happened came back in fragments, the pink lightning and the press of the crowd and Ladybug yelling his name. 

He sat up and blinked at the garden. Nothing hurt which probably meant she had already put everything back together. No shards of marble, no distant screaming. 

“You idiot,” she said and he tilted his head back to grin at her. He was sitting on the ground with his feet stretched out in front of him like a little kid. 

“It worked, didn’t it?” he said. 

“He threw you, I heard you hit the statue, it broke into bits but couldn’t see you. I thought you were hurt,” she said. She was standing over him with her hands on her hips and her lips a tight line. 

“I probably was hurt. Did I at least strike a good pose or was it something cliche and terrible? If I have to be possessed by an Akuma, I'd like to at least be purrty,” he said holding out a hand so she could help him up. 

“Idiot,” she said. 

She took his hand and pulled him up. In the same movement, she wrapped her arms around him. He tensed and jumped but she didn’t let go so he tightened his arms around her and held on. He kissed her hair and her temple and her forehead. It was as much to remind himself that he already knew what he wanted as it was to try and comfort her. 

“Stupid cat,” she said but now her voice was muffled against his chest. 

“I am that,” he said, “I also need to go back. I’ll text you when I get home. You can come over and tell me how dumb I am for hours if you want.” 

“Shut up,” she said.

He held onto her a little bit longer. Liam was lying in the grass on the other side of the statue. There were literally hundreds of other people running around the grounds. He was worried about Marinette. He needed to find his father before a search party was sent out. 

But all those things could wait. He held onto Ladybug and let her tell him how he was stupid and reckless while she pressed against him. 

“Can I trust you not to throw yourself in front of a bus in a heroic gesture before you get home?” she asked. 

“You’re the only person I’d jump in front of a bus for, so don’t lie in the middle of the road and I won’t have to stop any vehicles to save you,” he said. 

“You did not need to take a lightning strike to the chest to save me either,” she said taking a half step back and glaring at him. 

“Some risks are worth taking, you can do things I can’t. One of us was going to get hit at that range. He was too close and he was going to get that shot off. It was better that it hit me. And I am fine. Stop looking at me like that,” he said leaning in until his nose touched hers. 

She reached up and put her finger in on his nose. She glared a little harder and he pursed his lips at her. She pushed him back out of her space. He was laughing the entire time. 

“You’re the one who’s always calling me My Lady, escort me back to my castle then,” she said. 

“This is your castle? Impawsive. Here I thought it belonged to some historical society,” he said. 

He took her arm and walked with her back through the gardens. The people in their fancy gowns and now rumbled tuxedos were all headed back toward the building as well. Chat kept an eye out for his father or for Marinette or even for Gorilla. There was going to be video and pictures up on the internet of the two of them walking together. The idea of that made him smile. 

“Until the next time, My Lady,” he said with a bow when they reached the path that led around the building. 

She put a finger on his chin to tilt his face down and kissed him. Soft and fast. Then she was gone, swinging away toward the rooftops. He just stared after her for too long. There were people everywhere here. He flashed them all a huge grin and then snapped open the baton to get him back to the second floor balcony so he could disappear back into the Chateau and come out the other side as Adrien. 

People were talking about Ladybug and Chat Noir as he came down the stairs. He tuned the conversations out and stopped on the steps to look for someone he recognized. Marinette was standing near the door with Gorilla of all people. She was wrapped in a suit jacket and staring out at the crowd with the same kind of attention that he was. 

Looking. Looking for him. She was looking for him. 

“Adrien,” she said when she saw him. 

He couldn’t hear it but he saw her mouth move and her shoulders relax. She had been worried about him. For some reason he was surprised but then, Marinette was the type of person who probably worried about the old bat Wilhelmina. On top of that, he was the only person here that she knew here.

He waved and hurried over. She was wrapped in his jacket and immediately tried to give it back. 

“Keep it,” he said grabbing the lapels and pulling it closer around her. 

He was buzzing with energy. She didn’t stray too far as he had the same conversation he had had with his father since he was twelve. The one in which he explained that no, it wasn’t Gorilla’s fault that he had gotten lost in the fight. He apologized to Gorilla himself and took a moment to check on Liam. Once he was sure that he had made it through all his social obligations - and the driveway had cleared enough to fit another car into it - he took Marinette home. 

People who lived in central Paris went right back to what they were doing after an Akuma attack. They reacted about as much as people reacted to a fire drill. Fashion moguls and the very rich apparently all needed to leave immediately in case it happened again. It was funny to watch them. There was literal pearl clutching going on not too far from where they stood waiting for the line of cars to move and let theirs in.

Marinette was quiet once they got into the limo. She sat with the jacket curled around her like a blanket as she stared out the window at the country side. Adrien was sending text messages to Ladybug that got no response and failing to make conversation with Marinette at all. He sat beside her and she gave him one word answers. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked. 

“It scares me how easily someone could get hurt,” she said. 

“We’re fine, everyone’s fine,” he said. 

“You find it all exciting?” she asked. 

He hadn’t been watching his tone. He sounded happy. People had been frozen and terrorized and he was on the brink of giggles. He was excited but not about the fight. Ladybug had kissed him in front of fifty people and that was what was causing all his buzzing energy. Other people knew. It wasn’t the same as inviting her home for Christmas dinner but he loved that it wasn’t a secret. He wanted to go find a journalist and have it all printed up on the front page of the morning papers. 

“No,” he said to Marinette. 

“I know everyone is fine, but maybe next time…” she trailed off. 

“We’ve got superheroes, we’ll be fine,” he said and he wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She tensed and then slumped over to lean against him. He held her but she didn’t say anything else the rest of the way back into the city. 


	21. The Purr

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Binge chapter #3

Chat leaned against the wall, watching her work, letting himself stare. She purified and freed each Akuma, one at a time. It was painstaking work and there was a limit to how much she could do in a day. She seemed intent on crossing that line today. 

She was already tired. The fight at the Gala had to have taken up a lot of her energy but she’d told him she would feel better if she cleansed a few of the Akuma. She had shown up at his window angry. She didn’t seem to be angry with him. It was a less directed kind of frustration. Between opening jars, she would throw out theories about Hawkmoth. 

His buzzing thrill from the party and the kiss was gone. He was worried about her. She was throwing all her frustration at the Akuma collection and finally her miracle stone beeped at her. It sounded even more like a warning than it usually did. 

"They'll still be here tomorrow," he said. 

"I can do one more today," she said. 

"No, no, rest for a minute. A little catnap maybe," he said. 

He reached up and took her hand, stilling her so she couldn't reach for another jar without pulling away from him. She surprised him by sitting down beside him. She folded her knees up under her and took a long shaky breath in. She sat with her head down and her eyes shut and didn't look like his Ladybug at all. She looked small and tired and overwhelmed. The white akuma, little butterflies and nothing else, still fluttered around the room. They hadn't let them out yet. She didn't seem to notice them. 

He tugged on her hand, trying to pull her attention back to him. Instead, she kept her head down and folded into him. Her head landed on his shoulder and she leaned against him like he was the only thing keeping her from falling apart entirely. Their hands were still together and he wasn't sure who started it but their fingers were laced. He wrapped his other arm around her and held her close. 

"Do you want to stay here tonight?" he asked. 

She nodded and said nothing. He’d meant it half as a joke. The last time he’d invited her back to his place, she had kicked him off a roof. He didn’t know what to say to her like this. 

"Do you need anything?" he asked. 

"Just tired," she said. 

“Not because of this,” he said waving at the butterflies.

She stayed close to him. 

“Talk to me, Bug,” he said to the top of her head. 

“Have you ever wanted something and then when you get it it’s just awful?” she asked. 

Another beep. Three more before she wasn’t Ladybug anymore. She wasn’t moving. 

“I have been working for this job for years. Years. I did all the extra projects. I wrote all the letters and did all the volunteer work. I did everything right and it paid off. I got into the program which isn’t easy on its own. I got the job I wanted,” she said. 

“And you don’t like it?” he asked. 

“Everyone is terrible. Every success is at someone else’s expense, someone else’s failure is an ‘opportunity’ and I don’t know how anyone lives like this. I had made friends when I first got there but they’re all gone. The nice ones quit and the others hate you if you succeed or try to set you up so you fail. And every time I turn around there is another Akuma. Another perfectly nice person that’s been twisted into a monster over something stupid and petty like ruined shoes or being kicked out of the museum. People are going to get hurt. You could have gotten hurt tonight. I can’t fix any of it. Nothing,” she said. 

Another beep. Two left. 

“You fix it every day. You give those people back their lives, you make sure they don’t hurt the people they love. You’re wonderful. Truly wonderful. You probably make all those people at your job better just by sitting near them at the lunch table,” he said which got him a weak little laugh but not an answer. She was silent and close. 

“Did you mean it, that I could stay?” she asked. 

“Any time, I’ll give you the whole bedroom if you want it,” he said. 

He pulled her up and pushed her into his room. She came and went by the fire escape rather than the front door and he’d almost gotten over the weird fluttery feeling in the pit of his stomach that came with seeing her sitting at his window or leaning against his bed frame while she talked. Almost. He pointed at the bathroom and she disappeared into it before the transformation wore off. Having her in his room, as herself was even worse on his nerves than having her as Ladybug. 

She was a mystery. That girl on the other side of the door, with her stressful job and her dead father. He could probably find out her name. He could sit down and go through news reports until he found all the names of all the families who had lost someone that day. He didn’t even need to do that much, he could just open the door. 

He didn’t do either no matter how much the curiosity gnawed at him. 

She had offered that information once and he could wait until she was ready to offer it again. He didn’t need to take it from her. Some day she would trust him that much again. He wanted that more than he wanted the name. 

He wanted her to tell him more than he wanted to know. 

He stopped by the dresser and pulled out a pair of flannel pajama pants that would be comically long on her but it seemed like something that you might offer a friend at a sleepover. The first t-shirt he pulled out was a soccer jersey with his name across the back and he stuffed that back in and picked a plain blue one she could wear. He left it all on the bed and retreated to the living room. Still Chat Noir. He was not thinking straight enough to decide whether or not to change back so he just stayed. 

“These do not fit you,” her voice came from the other side of the door, “These are as long as I am tall. You’re tall but you aren’t that tall.” 

“Maybe I’m taller when I’m not transformed,” he said. 

“I wish that one worked for me. If you were tall enough for these to fit, you’d have to be 8 feet, you wouldn’t fit through doorways,” she said. 

“Professional basketball player, that’s me,” he said. 

“That explains the fancy apartment, you make millions every game, right?” she said. She laughed and he pictured her with the pajamas pooling around her ankles. She was probably adorable. They probably hung low on her hips so she had to hike them up. He pushed the thought away but it kept teasing at his attention. 

“Yup,” he said. 

She was quiet for a little while and he thought maybe she’d gone to bed. He’d got her a pair of pajamas to wear but he hadn’t gotten anything for himself. Jeans and the sofa for him, then. 

“Chat?” her voice was softer, less sure, less confident. He crept toward the door. Plain, not quite white, a gold doorknob, the same as it always was except she was on the other side of it. 

“Yes, my Lady,” he said. 

“It’s your bed, I feel rude making you sleep on the couch,” she said. 

“Tonight, it’s yours,” he said. 

“Or we could share?” The words came out slow and uneasy and he was pretty sure he’d misunderstood her but she was rushing on, “Like the sleeping sand day, just us, just together, it doesn’t have to be anything else.” 

“Anything you want,” he said as his heart pounded and tried to climb up his throat and strangle him. 

“I don’t want to be alone,” she said. 

He hesitated in front of the door with his fingers flexing but not reaching for the handle and his blood rushing in his ears. He was panicking. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d properly panicked. He wasn’t sure he’d ever panicked as Chat Noir. Superheroes weren’t allowed to panic but apparently whatever artificial bravery came with the transformation did not extend to his hyperactive emotions. 

“But it’s up to you, I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable,” she said. 

“You’re not,” he said which was a lie but it was a lie he hoped that he could make true if he just believed in it hard enough. He was uncomfortable but that didn’t have to be something bad. 

He leaned on the door and opened it very slowly. She was already tucked in under the blankets, with her back to him. The curtains were drawn so the only light in the room came from the doorway. The lights were on in half the apartment. There were six white butterflies flitting around. He hadn’t brushed his teeth or fed the fish or finished his homework. He ignored all of that and pushed the door shut behind him so he was back in the dark with her again. 

“Can I try something?” he asked. 

“Sure,” she said and the forced casualness did more to calm him down than anything else might have. She was better at hiding it but she wasn’t really any more relaxed. This was just as strange and new for her as it was for him. She still had her back to him. As Chat Noir, he could see pretty well in the dark but she didn’t turn back over. 

“I purr,” he said. 

“You say that the way someone else might say, ‘I am sexually attracted to moose.’ I can almost see you flinching in the dark,” she said. 

He had gotten himself all worked up and the tension shattered like plate glass. He started to laugh, “Moose are very sexy, I don’t understand why that’s so unusual,” he said. He flopped down onto the side of the bed where she wasn’t and laughed until he wasn’t so panicked. The girl he had been in love with for years was in his bed and she was making jokes about moose. 

“Moose are not sexy. Caribou, yes. Moose? No,” she said. He laughed again and when he had fallen quiet, she said, “Tell me why you’re all weird about purring. It’s a cat thing. That’s not the weirdest cat thing to inherit.” 

“It’s an involuntary thing. Real cats can control when they purr. I just do it but only if I can calm down completely. I’m not good at that,” he said. 

“I can’t sit still as Ladybug at all. I have all this extra energy,” she said. 

“Yes, exactly that,” he said. His foot was tapping as though trying to prove the point and he forced it still, “But the purring thing, when I can make it happen? Is fantastic. I’ve only ever done it three times and the first time it surprised me so much I stopped. It’s inpurriating.”

“That one was bad, and the word already has fur in it, too forced,” she said groping in the dark until she found his shoulder and gave him a shove. He was still lying on his back, looking up at the light fixture, trying to believe this was normal. 

“I will not have you critiquing my puns. Each one is a meow-sterpiece,” he said. 

“Each one is worst than the last,” she said. 

“Not true,” he said. 

He couldn’t make the words come to ask her if he could touch her but she didn’t wait for him to. She just flicked the blankets back and once he’d tentatively climbed in under them, she rolled over and put her head on his shoulder. 

“I thought you were supposed to be relaxing,” she said putting a hand on his chest. He could barely feel the touch through the suit but that didn’t seem to matter. Her hand was a weight and he couldn’t breathe with it there.

“Working on it,” he said wrapping an arm around her. He lay on his back and she cuddled in closer but he couldn’t release the tension in his muscles. Even his hand on her back was tense. 

“Try this,” she said and she rolled back onto her side and grabbed his arm to pull him along. He was stronger than she was like this but it didn’t even occur to him to do anything but exactly what she wanted. She lay back and pulled him in so he was the one with his head on her shoulder. She paused to trace the shape of his claws with her fingers and then pulled his arm across her stomach. She kept her fingers looped lightly around his wrist.  

“Then you have to breathe, I don’t think passing out was what you had in mind,” she said and her voice was right there just above his head. He took a deep breath and it smelled like her. Something fruity, his laundry detergent and a smell that he wouldn’t have been able to pick out if he was just Adrien but his cat senses would recognize her by smell alone. He focused on that, on letting some instinct that wasn’t quite human break down the little details of her scent. 

“Better, good kitty,” she said and he mock hissed at her but didn’t move. 

He would be perfectly happy to never move again. 

She touched his ear, the cat ear, and he twitched it. She giggled very softly. He nuzzled into her shoulder as she pushed his hair away from his face. He had gone from panicked to melting in what felt like an instant. Her fingers in his hair were gentle and she rubbed behind his ears. He assumed she meant it as a joke but it was so good that he leaned back into it. 

“Don’t stop,” he said when her hand moved on. She rubbed slow circles between his shoulder blades and he murmured, “That’s good too.”

He was bigger than a house cat and when the purr started it was loud. It rumbled through his chest. She laughed in surprise but didn’t stop touching him. He tightened his hold to cradle her in as close as he could without hurting her. His body relaxed as the vibrations built.

This was what the purr something special. It vibrated through his body and he relaxed. His heart rate slowed. His breathing evened and deepened. It wiped away tension he wasn’t aware he was holding in his back and shoulders. It pushed out any rushing thoughts until he was thinking as slowly as he was moving. 

He was half asleep and more content than he could remember being since he was a child. He held onto his Ladybug and breathed in her scent as he melted. 

“Good night, Chat,” she whispered with her lips against his forehead. 

He returned the kiss to the nearest bit of skin he could reach. Her shoulder might have been forgivable but he’d hit her collarbone where the too big shirt she had borrowed from him had slipped to the side. He was too lost in the purr to be embarrassed but he pull back and pressed his face back against her shoulder which was safely covered in clothing. 

She rubbed her hand along his jaw and he tilted his head back to allow her to touch his face or his throat or whatever it was that she wanted. His eyes were shut and he was going to lose the transformation to sleep before it wore off. He was still purring and he could feel the way the vibrations were working as much on her as they were on him. Her shoulders were more relaxed, her breathing slowing until it matched his, even the way her hands moved was slow.  

She held his chin in one hand and kissed him again. He returned it. Slow and hazy. Her mouth sweet and soft and just a little higher than him so he had to tilt his head back to reach her. Even this was hazy. It didn’t wake either of them up. She had a little smile on her lips as she pressed lazy kisses along his jaw to his ear and then back. He lost the transformation while their mouths were still together. 

“Hi,” he murmured once the blinding flash was gone. 

“Hi,” she said and she kissed him again. 

He fell asleep as Adrien, tucked in against his mystery girl with the taste of her in his mouth and the heavy soft relaxation of the purr still soaked into every muscle in his body. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet you thought after last chapter that I had finally cooled it on the rambling authors notes but NOPE. 
> 
> You know that line in the Princess Diaries movie where the stylist makes the moose joke? "A very sexy moose, makes the boy moose go HOOOONK"? Yeah that's what I was thinking of when I wrote that sexy moose line. Maybe I am the only one who thought that was the funniest joke in all of history but 12 year old me thought that was one of the funniest jokes of all time and I have never forgotten it. I can still picture Anne Hathaway's face and the way he said HOOOONK. 
> 
> This incidentally was the chapter I wrote well ahead of the others. The purring and the cuddling and the sleepy kisses and his little freak out about being in bed with a girl. These are the kind of things that I write fic for.


	22. The Sick Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have you ever wished that your fanfic came in a choose your own adventure style? You are in luck! There are two versions of Chapter 21. 
> 
> If you like things rated no higher than Teen where there is cuddling and kissing and bad jokes about vikings: scroll down, keep reading. 
> 
> If you really thought that last chapter was going to end with a lot less clothing and were thoroughly disappointed when it didn't: [CLICK HERE](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5997036/chapters/13778349) to visit the alternate version of Chapter 21 which has a Mature rating because there is cuddling and kissing and bad jokes about vikings and moderately explicit sex. 
> 
> Your call. 
> 
> Both Chapter 21s lead seamlessly into Chapter 22. It does not change the plot or the course that this ship is on. You don't miss any of the "important dialogue" all you miss is the porn. So choose what you're comfortable with.

Adrien’s alarm buzzed at him. His phone was still in his pocket and he groped for it in the dark. It wasn’t an alarm. It was a phone call. He hadn’t set any alarms. He groped for the phone and Ladybug shifted under him, he had fallen asleep half on top of her and hadn’t moved. His arm was asleep and he was too comfortable to want her to get off of it. He could get used to not having an arm. 

He answered the phone without looking at the screen. 

“Hello?” he said. 

“Is everything all right? You’re late for the lighting tests. You’re never late,” Adrien grimaced but didn’t groan or swear at the phone. He’d forgotten that he had volunteered for the lighting tests. They fit into his schedule before classes and all he had to do was stand on the runway stage while someone shone lights at him and other people debated whether the lights were sufficiently blue or fuschia or soft or harsh or whatever adjective they needed to be.

“Be sick,” Ladybug whispered before he could answer. She was twirling the hair at the back of his neck between her fingers and it was making him shiver. 

“I’m not going to be able to make it, Milo,” he said, “I think I’ve come down with something. I’m so sorry I didn’t call earlier. The cold meds must have knocked me right out..” 

“Ah, well. We’ll throw an intern up there for today but when we do the dress rehearsals, you owe me and nothing but Bo-Bo the Floating Death Clown will stop you from showing up,” Milo said. 

“Bo-Bo the Death Clown?” Adrien frowned at the faint glow on the other side of the curtains and tried to make that sentence sensible. He couldn’t. Ladybug’s fingers were still in his hair and he was only half listening to Milo. 

“Yes or Frou-Frou the Building Eating Chihuahua. What I mean is nothing short of needing rescued by Ladybug herself will be an acceptable excuse for missing next week,” Milo said. 

“Right, Frou-Frou, Ladybug, Bo-Bo, got it,” Adrien said. 

“Feel better darling, get some rest, ciao-ciao-ciao,” Milo said and the phone clicked off. 

“Was that conversation as ridiculous as it sounded?” Ladybug asked. 

He murmured something that was meant to be yes but came out as just a happy sigh. Her fingers were still trailing through his hair and they had dipped down below the collar of his shirt so when she rubbed his back, she was touching bare skin. He was going crazy, slowly but surely, crazy. It was a very good place to be. 

“Let me up,” she said after an elastic bit of time that might have been hours or just minutes. 

“No,” he said. 

“I need to call in sick or they’re going to be calling me too and there might be yelling. It’s not a good week to be calling out,” she said. 

“Do you need to go in?” he asked trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice and failing. 

“Yes but I’m going to stay here instead,” she said. 

“Good,” he said cuddling in closer and pushing her back against the mattress. 

“You still need to let me up, lazy fur ball,” she said. 

He groaned and rolled off of her. She didn’t get off her side of the bed, she slid over him and then out of the blankets. He listened as she padded across the room to where her things were piled up on top of his dresser. It was dark. The curtains kept the room as dark as night but with the sun up, there was enough light to pick out details and shadows in the room. She was just shapes. She stumbled on the pajama pants and had to hike them up. Her hair was loose and hanging down her back but those were about the only details he could see. 

She was rummaging through her bag for her phone. 

All the way across the room. 

She was too far away. 

He got up so he could come and hug her from behind. She leaned back into his chest and he set his chin on the top of her head. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and breathed in the smell of her. It didn’t matter that his human nose couldn’t pick out as many details from her as his cat one could. She still smelled nice.

“Too tall, fur ball,” she said. 

“Too small, Bug,” he said. 

She called in and left a message on an answering machine. An employee number, an apology but no excuse or even a lie about being sick, and a promise to catch up on everything she was going to miss when she was back in tomorrow. 

He started backing up towards the bed and she walked with him. He sat down and she turned in his arms so that she sat on his lap. He couldn’t see her but this close he didn’t need to. 

“I read somewhere that if you sleep beside someone, your brain releases bonding chemicals and it makes you trust them,” he said. 

“You’re a massive dork,” she said. 

“What?” he said. 

“I am wearing your clothes, sitting on your lap, I just called out from my very competitive hostile work environment to spend the day with you and you’re talking about brain chemistry,” she said laughing and leaning her forehead against his shoulder. He could feel her hair against his cheek. She had such nice hair. He ran his fingers through it as she laughed at him. 

“What would you like to talk about instead?” he asked. 

“I don’t really want to talk, I want to kiss you, maybe have some breakfast and then I want you to do that purring thing again,” she said. 

“It’s good isn’t it?” he said. 

“Fantastic. I'd do it today, everyday, any day, I could be an addict by the end of the week,” she said. 

“I could get used to that, I could sleep like that every day for the rest of my life,” he said. 

His hands wandered down her back to waist and she took it as an invitation to slide closer. Her knees on either side of his legs had been one thing but now her body was against his and the feel of her thighs spread so wide was distracting him. From everything. The walls could have been falling down and he wouldn’t have noticed because of the way she was straddling his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and held on. 

She cuddled in and shifted just enough to make it impossible for him to forget where her body was. Her head was on his shoulder, her arms around his back, and she pressed into him rather than leaned. He rubbed his face against hers and she laughed and twitched away. 

“You’re such a cat, and you need to shave,” she said. 

“Oh sorry,” he said pulling back. 

“No, come back,” she said catching his face with her hand. She ran her palm along his jaw and he could feel what she meant about shaving now that he was paying attention. Her thumb along his jaw and then down this throat was enough to make him want to purr again. Her hand dragged against the stubble and that made him shiver too. 

“You’d look hilarious if you grew it out,” she said, “Chat Noir with a viking beard.” 

“I would not be able to pull off a viking beard. Not as Chat Noir or at my day job,” he said. 

“I didn’t say that you would look good, I said that it would be hilarious,” she said still tracing his throat with her finger tips. 

“It would be that,” he said and his voice came out all soft and halfway to being a sigh. He pulled her in a little tighter and kissed her. He hit her jaw but that was it’s own kind of electric. He kissed down her neck and she tilted her head back for him. He went slow, a kiss, wait with his mouth against skin, another, this one a little lower, wait again. She didn’t stop him. She murmured encouragement and played with his hair and kept the rest of her body pressed flush to his.

“I want you forever,” he said. 

“We’re going to figure this out, we’re going to have forever. It just may not start today,” she said. 

“It started years ago, you’ve been my forever since almost the moment I met you,” he said. 

“The first time I met you, I thought you were another Akuma,” she said. 

“I know, but I won you over eventually,” he said. “I went out there that day, to find you. I had transformed once, I could barely use my powers, Plagg and I still argued over everything but there was danger and I knew you’d be in the middle of it, trying to save lives. That was where I wanted to be. I wanted to be where you were. I wanted to be half the person you were.” 

“You’re twice the person I am,” she said. 

“Not true,” he said. 

“It is but it doesn’t matter because we’re better together,” she said. 

“Always,” he said. 

She kissed him and his hands came up to catch her face and hold on as he kissed her back. Gentle for only a moment before she was kissing him hard, pulling him in and teasing at his lower lip until he opened his mouth for her. He was lost, he was hers and he had never been happier. He leaned back and she came with him, lying on top of him and not breaking the kiss. 

They lay curled in the dark and every kiss made him smile. 

"You really are perfect,” he said. 

“I am entirely not,” she said. 

“Ok, but you’re my favourite and I like you best,” he said, “Not perfect but better than anyone else.” 

“You’re such a dork,” she told him again. 

“But I’m your dork and that makes me special,” he said. 

“It does,” she pulled him in to kiss. He still had a hand on her thigh and he pulled it up with him as he leaned in to reach her. She kissed him hard and in the middle of it stopped to say, “And thank you for not saying purrfect.” 

“Damn it,” he said shaking his head and propping himself up on his elbows, “I missed that. I blame you, you’re distracting me and it’s killing the quality of my puns, My Lady.” 

She couldn’t see him in the dark but he wiggled his eyebrows at her and cracked a grin. His nerves were gone. Just gone. For the first time, possibly ever, she felt like a sure thing. She wasn't swinging away or racing against the miracle stone's clock. She was there and she was safe and happy and his. He was struck by a wave of possessiveness that threw him off. He lost his other desires in a wave of his heart beating out the same word over and over. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. He shook it off. 

"I am a good influence is what you mean," she said. 

"Yes, good," he told her. 

"If asked you to stop making puns, would you?" she asked. 

"Yeah, but only for today, once we're fully dressed again, all bets are off," he said, "Is that what you want?"

"Whatever," she said with a wave of her hand. 

"You like them," he said with a laugh.

"I do not like them, I tolerate them because I like you," she said. 

"Close enough," he said, "Damn, claws enough. You really are throwing me off." 

She laughed and pulled him back down to kiss again.


	23. The Message

Adrien woke up again to a tinny alarm. It was some sort of prerecorded cell phone noise. One of those not-quite-music sounds. It was grating. Beside him, someone swore and the last day fell back into place for him. He groped around until he found her and pulled her back against his chest. 

“No,” she said. 

“Yes,” he kissed the back of her neck. 

“You don’t have one?” she asked. 

“Don’t have a what?” he asked. 

“An Akuma alarm,” she said. 

She was pulling away from  him and this time he let her go. He did in fact have an Akuma alert. He had apps that picked through social media and news reports to spit out potential problems. It was one his phone. He didn’t know where his phone was. At one point it had been in his pocket but now he didn’t have a guess. 

He saw hers light up from across the room as she pulled the phone out of her bag and thumbed through it. Her hair was in the way and he couldn’t see her face but she was standing there, leaning a hip against his dresser as though she had never been more comfortable anywhere. 

“Get up,” she said. 

“Ugh,” he said. 

“An eloquent argument, but you still need to get up,” she said without looking at him.

As she spoke she was pulling her clothing straight and gathering her stuff. He didn’t bother trying to find his phone or anything else. He dragged himself up out of the bed. She’d shut off her phone again and that had been their only illumination. He followed her by sound and caught her hand mostly by luck as she headed for the door. He pulled her in and she leaned her shoulder against his chest. It was almost good enough to calm his need for having her close. 

“I am going to turn on the lights,” he said. 

“No,” she said. 

“No?” he said. 

“Hey,” her voice was softer. He must have let too much of his emotion into his voice on that one word because she turned into him and caught his face in one hand. He leaned into her touch, “Not because I don’t want to. I do. I need to know as much as you do but there is some sort of blue monster climbing up the side of the Lourve and we need to deal with that first. I want time. I want to ask all the questions and I can’t while there’s something out there hurting people.”

“Akuma first,” he said. 

“Then we can have all the getting to know you conversations,” she said. 

“Fine but this Akuma owes me another sick day that I actually get to spend in bed with you. Go figure out where the Kwamis are hiding. I need pants or detransforming after the fight is going to be awkward for the entire city,” he said.

She laughed and pushed him away gently before she slipped out of the room.  

He met her on the fire escape as Chat Noir and she paused to kiss him before climbing for the roof. It almost made up for his disappointment. He had never really given his imagination full reign over what having her be his was would be like. He had never stopped to imagine easy kisses and talking about later like it would be a given that they would see each other again. It was better than he could have hoped. The way she kissed him like it was a reflex was in the running for his favourite part. 

She led the way across the rooftops and he kept close on her heels. The creature hanging off the brick work and methodically breaking all the windows of the museum was bigger than a human should have been and periwinkle blue. It had claws and a tail but luckily no wings. It was always easier when they couldn’t fly. 

“It’s actually big and blue,” he said.  

“This is the second in two days. You’d think he’d need more time to recharge,” she said. 

“We’re just lucky,” Chat said. 

As far as Akuma battles went, this one was pretty easy. The only not blue and scaly part of the Akuma was a watch which made finding the butterfly easy enough. Ladybug’s Lucky Charm had brought her something he didn't see because he'd been playing distraction on the rooftop while she went after the watch but it unbalanced the Akuma enough that it lost its grip on the side of the building. Once it was laying on its back, Chat could crack the watch face and release the little butterfly. 

“I’m going to go home and grab a change of clothes,” she said as they stood together watching the butterfly spiral up into the blue sky. She stood with her shoulder against his. Every time she touched him, he cracked a smile. 

“I can lend you something,” he said. 

“Nothing I can wear to work and I can’t afford to skip work twice in a row. Tell me your actual apartment number and I will come to your door like a regular person,” she said. 

He had pouted and she had laughed at him. Letting her go meant going back to his real life and in his real life he had a pile of homework on the mathematical comparisons between different types of load bearing columns. As much as he enjoyed his classes, he wanted her there with him more than he wanted anything else. 

"413 but you should just come home with me," he said. 

"You're supposed to say something romantic about me spending the night. I'll see you soon," she said. She kissed him again before her beeping miracle stone made her turn and scamper away before someone caught a picture of Chat Noir kissing some girl on the street. 

Adrien went home without her and tried to put his life into some kind of order. He shooed all the white butterflies they hadn’t dealt with the night before out a window. He put his shirt back on right side out while Plagg mocked him for getting dressed in the dark. 

"Worth it," he said. 

He found his phone where it had slipped down behind the bed. It was overflowing with messages. People asking about the Gala mostly. He sent off a few responses to the people who seemed most worried about him being dead and dismissed everything else until he found one from Alya. He’d scrolled through her blog post on the event without reading it. She hadn’t been there to get pictures of her own but there were a few links to videos people had put up on youtube or vine. He hadn’t watched those either. 

The text message wasn’t about the Gala or Ladybug or gossip. It read: “Is Marinette still with you?” 

“Marinette isn’t with me. Did you find her?” he sent back. 

The last he had seen Marinette, she had waved to him from the front door of her dormitory before disappearing inside. As far as he knew she was fine. If she was in contact with anyone, it would have been Alya and worry curled in his stomach. Alya never left a text unopened and her response came back immediately. 

“She finally picked up. You both need to read your messages more than once a week,” she sent. 

He kept the phone on him but didn’t answer most of the messages coming in as he attempted to get his problems done for class. He kept glancing at the screen as he wrote out streams of numbers and sketched out diagrams. He had talked himself out of worrying for most of the afternoon. 

He was over eager to see her, that was all it was. It worked until afternoon faded into evening. His worry was worry now. 

“Bug, do you want to me to order something for dinner?” he sent her. 

It seemed casual enough, not anxious or clingy. He cringed at being that guy. The guy who had to meticulously plan out his messages in case he sent the wrong implication. Nino had been like that at the start of his relationship with Alya. He had worried over every word and what it might mean if you read it on a Tuesday while watching the sunset as opposed to a Friday during breakfast. Adrien had every intention of never being that guy but here he was, worrying about coming across as clingy or demanding. 

He pushed the phone away and dropped his head onto the desk and groaned as his own stupidity. 

Nothing came back. He waited but the phone didn’t buzz. He flipped it over but the screen was the same. Message delivered. That was all. He frowned and started to write out another message. Deleted it. Did it again. Deleted that too. He got up and walked around the room before going back to the phone again. 

Still nothing. 

“It’s fine if you can’t come tonight, but tell me that you’re ok,” he sent. 

That sounded worried but he was worried. She wasn’t as immediate with texting back as Alya was but usually if she was there, he got a response right away. He was expecting her to be there. She had said she was coming back. He watched the screen and tried to talk himself into a course of action that was more reasonable than sitting and staring and worrying. 

The phone finally chimed. He snapped it up prepared to laugh at himself and his over reaction. 

“Don’t worry. Go left.” 

That was it. Nothing else. He sent other messages but they went unanswered. He phoned her but it disconnected without an answer. She didn’t have a voice mail for him to leave a message on.

“Plagg,” he said. 

“I am so disappointed that you won’t be getting laid tonight,” Plagg drawled from somewhere in the apartment. 

“Look at this,” he held out the phone as Plagg drifted up over the back of the sofa. 

“Maybe she sent directions to the wrong apartment,” he said. 

“That’s all she sent me,” he said. 

“So don’t go left then,” Plagg said but he didn't sound as sarcastic as he usually did. Plagg sat with him the rest of the evening. Not offering any useful suggestions but just being there. Plagg's nonchalance set Adrien's nerves jangling even if he wouldn't admit to being worried. Plagg just sat there and pretended not to be concerned at all. 

Adrien kept calling but got nothing back. He finally went to bed in a room that had never felt so empty before and looked at the ceiling instead of sleeping. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We aren't to the happily ever after folks. 
> 
> Not yet anyways. (I am a sucker and I always write a happily ever after but first we must all suffer). 
> 
> To those who wanted this chapter to be a reveal or more cuddling on steroids: Whoops. Nope.
> 
> To those who have been plotting out ways to make this story worse since like chapter 2: join me in the evil laughter. 
> 
> As an aside, to the homestuck fandom, 413 is not a reference to that. 4 is an unlucky number in China and 13 is an unlucky number in Europe so I just put the two unluckiest numbers I could find together for Adrien's address. 
> 
> To my anon reviewer who hates kissing, dude, are you still reading? How are you? Does your capslock button still work? How're the kids?


	24. The Left Hand Turn

Adrien kept his phone on him at school, at work, when he was just walking around his apartment or going to the grocery store. He usually had his phone with him but it didn't usually feel so heavy or important. He didn't usually check it so often. Nothing he sent her even seemed to go through, he might as well have been sending messages into the void. It meant he was waiting on her to reach out and that was playing havoc on his nerves. 

"Go left," usually meant to meet an enemy head on but it also meant they were splitting up to come at an Akuma from two sides. She swung out to the side and he took the middle but that meant there was a target. He didn't know what the target was. There was no enemy that he was aware of, he'd gone through every news post from the day she'd disappeared and there was no other attack. There wasn't even anything unusual that might have meant one of the less aggressive Akuma was playing tricks. 

If he knew what the problem was, he could help. As it was, he could do nothing but stare at his phone and try not to let his mood spill over onto the people he had to talk to. He had been dodging calls from his father in particular until he wasn't so upset. 

"Scared," a little voice in the back of his head whispered but he pushed it down. It didn't stop murmuring: "You're scared."

It was two days before he heard from her. 

She sent him a text message that came through some sort of website, it didn't have a return number and the first line was an advertisement. He opened it only because he was compulsively opening everything that came up as a notification. It looked like spam and he would have closed it without reading the entire thing but the first line was:

"Go left," and it was followed by an address, a time, and the word, "Rooftop."

Something tense and terrified in his chest loosened. He walked off of campus without returning for the second half of the damned calculus course. He should have stayed. He had the conversation with himself as he walked away that he should have stayed, could have stayed but he knew that his ability to focus was a lost cause. He had hours to go before he got to the meeting time. He stopped off at a fromagerie to buy Plagg some of the high quality Camembert as an apology for all the pacing he was going to do for the rest of the afternoon. 

It was nine o'clock when he headed out as Chat Noir. Plagg had whined about it but he'd also eaten half the round of cheese so Adrien hadn't even bothered to argue with him. He ran a little just to burn off the worst of his anxiety before he came up to the building. Just an apartment block with a shop on the ground floor. It wasn't so dissimilar from the apartment block where he lived. 

As he looked at it, paranoia set in. 

Ladybug had sent the message. He was sure it was her. He had no reason to be sure. He stopped and let himself think it all the way through. Maybe it hadn't been her. Why hadn't she sent it from her phone? And if she hadn't sent it, then what had happened to her that someone else had been able to figure out that code. The knot of anxiety was retying itself. Something had happened to her and he needed to know what it was. 

"Curiosity killed the cat," he muttered to himself but it didn't stop him. 

The rooftop was like any rooftop. He landed on the chimney with his baton extended in case he was going to need to fight his way out of some kind of trap. He was there early and there was no one else up there. There were no security cameras or guards. It wasn't even the type of rooftop with access. It was empty. It was just another building. He sat and waited but didn't let his guard down. 

She landed below him. Landed badly. Her aim had been off and she hit the slant of roof and started to slide. He moved fast enough to grab her by the arm and swing her back onto the flat part of the rooftop. She swore and wobbled even there. 

And she was wrong. 

"Who are you?" he asked and his voice was even. 

"Damn it, you can tell? This whole plan hinges on people not being able to tell," she said. 

Some sixth sense was there in the back of his head telling him that she wasn't an Akuma or someone in costume but she also wasn't Ladybug. Not his Ladybug. She was a little too tall and though the magic of the transformation made it hard for him to say what exactly it was that was off, something was. Her hair was wrong. Not long enough or dark enough. Her face didn't look right. He couldn't remember his Ladybug's exact features when she wasn't standing in front of him so he couldn't compare them but this was not the same person. 

"Who are you?" he asked again and his voice wasn't as calm. 

"Ladybug, well, not really, but I am today," she said. 

"Is she dead?" he heard himself ask and it didn't feel like something Chat would ever say. It sounded like Adrien's voice from when he'd been little, when his mother had vanished. He kept his expression neutral but once the words were out the possibility that it was true hit him hard in the chest. 

"Oh god, no! No," she said and waving her hands as though she could wave the idea away. Then once more as though she wasn't sure he'd heard her, "No. No no no no. No."

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" he asked. 

He leaned against his staff and considered this not-Ladybug. His panic had given way to curiosity and confusion. A lot of confusion. He kept looking at her like there was some answer in her, if he just found the right detail, he could unravel the entire puzzle. 

"So M-my friend, who is Ladybug, which is still a little weird for me to say because isn't that ridiculous? But she is and she has these earrings and this little red blobby thing that's adorable and freaky and is maybe an alien and do you have one too?" she asked.

He was silent for a minute before he realized she meant the Kwami, "Yes," he said. 

"Right, I guess you must because you're a regular person too. So weird," she said. Chat raised his eyebrows and tilted his head at her in a silent question and she straightened up a little. 

"You know that Gala? It was a test. For a long time the conspiracy theorists on the internet have been saying that all you need to do to prove someone is Ladybug is take all your candidates out to the middle of no where and then send an Akuma after them. Of course in order to do that you need to be able to make Akuma and then kidnap young women, so most of these whack jobs on the blogs can't very well put that theory to the test. Except that's exactly what happened at that stupid fashion party."

"You're telling me that the reason that Akuma appeared so far away from Paris is because Hawkmoth sent it on purpose? He sent it after her?" Chat said. 

"Clever kitty cat! Good job!" she said. She talked with her hands, flapping them around and pacing a little bit as she explained. He was on edge for when she slipped and fell off the roof again. He kept a hand free in case he needed to catch her.

"Don't call me that, just tell me where she is," he said. 

"Sitting at home, probably on her bed doing some kind of fancy project for her fancy job," she said. 

"So she's fine," he said. 

"Except for the invisible stalker, yeah," not-Ladybug said with a shrug. 

"What?" he said harsher. She turned to him for a moment as though his tone had scared her. He tried to soften his expression but knew he was failing. 

"Tikki and I have a theory," she said going back to pacing and bouncing, "That when you showed up at that party, you threw off all the calculations the butterfly freak had made because if you could get there that fast then maybe she could as well. Her being there didn't prove that she was on the guest list, like it was supposed to. Makes sense right? So now he wants to prove it for sure or just grab the earrings and run. There's something following her. It was waiting in her room when she got back from the big blue museum climbing monster battle. It had gone through all her stuff."

"Looking for the miracle stone," Chat said. 

"Guess so, or a photo album labeled, 'My Adventures as Ladybug,' which you'd think is ridiculous but she used to keep a journal when she was younger so you know, she's a bit of an idiot herself sometimes. Now it's following her around, waiting for some kind of proof or to be able to steal her stone and run off home," she said. 

"You have her stone," he pointed out waving a hand at her red suit. 

"I do which is why we should probably get going because I'm not 'the chosen one' and so Tikki can only keep my transformation in place for about an hour and it hurts her to do it and we're going to run out of time," she said. 

"How did you get her earrings?" Chat asked. 

"She found the invisible thing in her room, came to my place instead, and conveniently forgot her bag on my sofa. Let me tell you, I had a heart attack when the apple with eyes climbed out of it. Sorry Tikki, you're not an apple. I'm just stressed. Can they hear you when you're transformed?" she asked dropping her voice to a stage whisper as though it would make any difference. 

"I honestly don't know," he said, "What's the plan that we're running out of time for?"

"Being seen publicly," not-Ladybug said, "You knew right away I wasn't her though, so maybe it won't work?"

"I know her better than most people," he said. 

"Right. So public sighting is still a go? Where do we go and how do we get down?" she asked. 

He ended up having to half carry her as they made the Eiffel Tower run. Most of the pictures that people had of Ladybug and Chat Noir that didn't come from an Akuma battle, came from this path. They ran it often just for fun. It was even and easy and it meant they could go very fast. Today though, it mattered more that it was public and it was relatively well lit and took them along lower buildings that could be seen from people's windows and through parks where they could be seen by just about everyone. Chat also made a bit of a show of climbing up to the first level of crossbeams on the tower itself. 

"Good enough?" he asked once they were there. 

"That was awesome. Do you always go that fast?" she asked. 

Chat laughed. He had been slowing it down to give her time to get her footing and to make sure there were lots of chances for people to notice them going by and get a picture. Now that they were up here, she was positively bouncing. She was kicking her feet and leaning out to look at the city. He grabbed her shoulder and pushed her back. 

"I should have brought my phone. This is awesome. We need to do this again so I can take a selfie. I need a selfie of climbing the side of the Eiffel Tower with Chat Noir," she said. 

He sighed. 

"I don't even care that you're a sourpuss and you're all sad that your girlfriend isn't here. I got to climb the Eiffel Tower with Chat Noir. That's awesome," she said, "Next time I'm bringing my phone."

The miracle stone wasn't beeping but she started shifting like there were ants in her suit. She had fallen silent, which hadn't happened since she'd arrived on the roof and made him worry about her. She was going to lose the transformation and that would be a problem. He pulled her onto his back so that he could move fast and took them off down another boulevard where there wouldn't be as many people to notice them. He made a vault with the baton to skip from one block to the next and she screamed in his ear as they plummeted back to earth.

"You could get hit by a train in this suit and it would hurt the train more than it would hurt you. Even if I dropped you, you'd be fine. Please stop screaming," he told her once he'd put her down on the ground in an empty alley. 

"That was so cool but, dude, if you drop me, I might have push you in front of a train just to test that theory, don't do that to me again," she said. She was unsteady on her feet. 

"Will you be alright if I leave you to turn back or do you want me to stay?" he asked. 

"You should go. I am under strict orders that you aren't to be told who she is," she said. 

"Why?" he asked. 

"Because she's pretty sure that if you knew who she was and where to find her then you'd try and help and end up with the Akuma trailing you as well. She's already had to go into hiding, you need to be out doing heroic things because if you carrying me around Paris has proved anything, I sure as hell can't fill those shoes. Did you know Regular-Her falls up stairs and once sewed her own finger with a sewing machine? She had to go to the emergency room because she has the coordination of a drunk sloth. I love her but she's a klutz. Then I find out she regularly swings around Paris on a child's toy," she shook the yo-yo, "And saves peoples lives. It's mind boggling, really."

Chat laughed and his heart lurched in his chest to imagine his Ladybug as someone clumsy. It didn't fit with his imagined image of her but it was adorable. His expression fell into something serious. 

"Do something for me?" he asked, she nodded, "Make sure she knows that if she needs me, ever, for anything, she can come find me. She can show up at my door in the middle of the night in her civilian clothes if she needs to. My identity isn't more important than her safety. Ever."

"She's not going to go for that. Pretty sure you're more important to her than just about anything else but I'll pass it on," she said. 

He stared at her. 

"Yeah, she's not so good at sharing her feelings. She was in love with this boy at school for years and couldn't even look him in the eye without forgetting how words work but trust me, she has a bit of a thing for you. So sad for you though, means that she isn't going to come visit until we manage to convince her Akuma buddy to go the hell away. But we can do that, you and I," she said. 

She elbowed him in the ribs like they were old friends and then turned and pushed her way through the nearest door. He hesitated a split second too long before opening it. He was looking at a short empty hallway. She'd already gone. He edged forward, ears swiveling but she must have pushed through into whatever was beyond the other door. 

The door at the other end of the hall opened with a clatter and he pushed himself back into the shadows as a man in a messy chef's uniform pushed past carrying a bag of garbage and grumbling about idiot kids. The noise of a busy kitchen cut off as the door swung shut behind the chef. Chat kept his back flat to the wall until the man had dropped off the trash and then come back through again. 

He told himself it was a good thing he'd lost the girl who wasn't Ladybug.

Because Ladybug was right. 

He wasn't going to be able to stay away if he knew where she was and that she wasn't safe. He was less concerned with his own identity than he was by the prospect that he would be confirming for anyone watching that she was Ladybug and that would just put her in more danger. He told himself over and over and over as he walked home that this was for the best. And yet, not being able to reach her, not being able to help, felt too much like abandoning her for it to sit right.  

When he was himself again he sent her a message that he knew wouldn't go through, "I'm right here if you need me." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sewing your finger thing actually happened to a cosplayer friend of mine. I don't think the machine succeeded in going all the way through her finger but it made it through her nail and she needed to go to emergency. She almost didn't get her costume done in time for the con. I think she had to sew it while one of her fingers was bandaged up twice the size of the others and unbendable. Fun times and very Marinette. 
> 
> Also, goddamn but I love writing Alya - yes it is Alya, I think that's obvious but if it isn't then let this be your confirmation - I love her exuberance and her immediate gear shift from "must discover Ladybug's identity" to "must lie and risk self and protect best friend's identity at all costs even from her boyfriend."
> 
> If you want Marinette and Alya's side of the events I did write it: [Phone Calls with Alya #3: An Extra Scene](http://ashesandhoney.tumblr.com/post/139705056886/phone-calls-with-alya-3) but I don't think it really fits into the full story so it's on tumblr as an extra scene.


	25. The Ride Home

The winter show was approaching at a dead run. Everything was busy. Final fittings were in progress. The set was finished enough that they had done a walk through so Milo and the designers could throw a fit over ordering and who went first. The mock ups for everything going to print had been made but not finalized. It would have made going to work enough to give him an ulcer on the best of days. As it was, with his head full of worry, setting foot in the building mostly made him want to kill people.

He was running away from a meeting that had dragged on for an extra hour and hadn't even been about the models when he detoured past the design studios. There was a good chance that he was just going to run into Elijah and Stefan still having the same argument they had been having in the meeting room but there was also a small chance he would run into Marinette.

The studios were quiet and most of them dark behind the big glass partitions. Design's work slowed down as the show went from development into production. The active workshops weren't working on the runway lines, they'd be working on the department store productions or private commissions or Spring. With winter about to go on, Spring was already well into development. The higher-ups were working on the actual design of Summer and next Fall as well so they'd be ready when the next show dates were released.

He heard a sound as he went by the studio room where he'd bothered Marinette as Chat Noir. It was dark but he stuck his head inside. The Great Squirrel Invasion of 2013 had left everyone in the entire building with the near pathological need to make sure that any open window or unidentified sound did not lead to baby squirrels chewing their way through thousands of dollars of imported silk to build a nest.

He thought he caught a bit of movement by the window but when he looked again there was nothing there but winter sunshine. He shrugged and turned to leave the room and noticed her. She was sitting on the floor with her knees draw up and her back braced against a file cabinet. She rubbed her eyes and looked up at him with a weak smile.

"Marinette?" he said.

He moved faster than he had intended, swinging around a table and sitting down in front of her. She startled and looked at him with wide eyes. Her hair wasn't as neat as it usually was. The skin around her eyes was swollen. He reached out and pushed a piece of hair away from her face as she watched him.

"Marinette, what happened?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said.

"You're crying in a dark room, something happened," he said.

"I just haven't been sleeping well, it's nothing," she said with a smile that was very well faked. If her cheeks weren't red and tear streaked, she would have looked perfectly happy.

"I can tell you with some experience that Design Studios aren't the best places to cry. Let me take you home," he said.

"That's very forward, Mr. Agreste," she said with a little giggle.

"I did tell you once that I was charming," he said.

Adrien stood up and held out his hand to her. She tilted her head back and hesitated before she took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. She took her hand back immediately. She shoved her feet back into a pair of little pink shoes with low heels and picked up a jacket from a chair and shrugged into that as well.

"If you ask pressing questions then I will ask pressing questions too," he said.

"I don't understand," she said.

"I'm going to show you tricks for making sure that no one in your workplace can tell that you've been crying in empty offices. Those are my first choice but empty design studios don't change any of the principles," he said.

"No questions," she said.

"Good," he said.

Most of his crying in offices had happened when he was younger. Having an apartment to retreat to made it far easier than being eleven and abandoned in an office while some meeting took place next door. The worst had been the back to back shoots with strange call times that left him exhausted and frustrated. Sometimes it felt like those days were long gone. Sometimes it felt like he was the same lonely overwhelmed kid and he always would be. 

Adrien wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her along to the sink in the back of the room so she could wash her face with cold water. He held a wet towel over her eyes. She was tense but smiled at him when he pulled it away. He knew she had blue eyes but for some reason they caught him by surprise. Her smile didn't reach those eyes and she looked sad and lost for a moment before she recollected herself and turned away from his stare.

"See? The cold helps get rid of the puffy blotchiness which is the biggest tell," he said.

"Thank you, but you don't need to fuss over me," she said.

"I don't do it out of the goodness of my heart, I fully expect you to return the favour the next time my life falls apart and I find myself sobbing in a corner," he said.

"That's not funny, your life is not falling apart," she said.

"It is, I just keep it well hidden. Let's go steal a car and a driver and I'll take you home," he said with a wink. He took her bag and her coat and she scampered after him a few steps to fall in beside him as he led the way to the elevator.

"Adrien?" she asked.

"The deal was no pressing questions," he said in answer to her tone more than what she had said.

"Fine so a general question then: Are you alright?" she asked.

"Yes. I was going for dramatic to distract you from your own worries," he said but she kept looking at him until he shrugged and added, "Girl problems."

"Ok," she said in a tone of voice that said she knew he was lying or at least not telling the entire truth. He leaned against the wall beside her so that his shoulder brushed hers and shrugged. She looked up at him and then away but she nudged him back. A silent agreement not to ask. 

They borrowed a car and a driver. There was always someone just sitting in the little lounge just inside from the parking garage in case some important designer needed to be whisked away to some important meeting. This wasn't going to qualify on the important list but Adrien was prepared to pull rank if that's what it took. He wasn't putting her on a bus while she looked ready to pass out on her feet. Joe, the driver in question, didn't put up any argument. Either they were overstaffed or he just didn't care. He just shrugged and grabbed the keys.

Adrien held open the door for her and she smirked at him and ushered him in ahead of her. For a moment they both hesitated before Adrien bowed his head to her and climbed into the car first. She slid in beside him. He had been expecting her to sit across from him but she sat shoulder to shoulder like they had on the way home from the Gala. Neither of them talked and before they'd gone two blocks in the late afternoon traffic, she had slumped over and fallen asleep against his shoulder.

He smiled at her and pushed the buzzer for the driver. The little divider slid down and Adrien could see the side of Joe's head. 

"If I gave you a really big tip and came up with a creative lie for the accountants, would you be willing to drive around for an hour?" he asked.

"Sure, kid," Joe said.

"Thank you," Adrien said.

"Uh huh," Joe said and he hit the button to slide the divider back up leaving Adrien alone with Marinette sleeping against his arm. He slid a little lower in his seat her head was against his shoulder and then answered all his email while she slept. It was like being trapped in a bubble where the rest of the world was very far away.

It didn't make him worry less. Every other thought was still about Ladybug but it helped push everything else away. A part of him wanted to shake Marinette awake and tell her absolutely everything as though confession would fix anything. He couldn't do that so instead he let her sleep. At least one of them deserved the rest.

When the hour he'd negotiated out of the driver was up and they finally pulled up in front of the dorm, he woke her up gently. She blinked at him but didn't seem to be able to pull herself all the way out of sleep, he wondered how long it had been that she hadn't been sleeping. She had seemed fine at the Gala but that was nearly a week ago.

"Just pass me your key, I'll take you up to your room," he said.

She narrowed her eyes then yawned. She dug a key card on a string out of her shoulder bag. He looped it around his wrist and considered her for a moment. He climbed out the other door and rather than forcing her awake, he just picked her up. 

“Hey,” she said 

She didn't ask him to put her down and that seemed like proof that there was something wrong. Marinette was independent almost to a fault and he was a little wary of touching her. She didn't always seem to like it but she had gone from freaking out when he brushed her hand to falling asleep on his shoulder. He wouldn't have thought she'd let him pick her up but here she was, half asleep with her head resting on his chest.

He managed to wave the key card at her door enough times to make the lock click open. It was a closet of a room. Two beds, two desks, two dressers, all in made out of that white plastic covered wood. The roommate was not there. He guessed that the bed with the pile of sketchbooks and a flip-book of fabric samples on the side table was hers. He laid her down on it.

He turned around and went back to swing the door shut. He had been sure he had kicked it shut behind them but it mustn't have latched. He grabbed a folded quilt, the most personal thing on Marinette's side of the room, and threw it over her. 

Marinette, Mari," he said making her turn to him and blink.

"You need to stay home tomorrow," he said.

"No, I've missed too much work already, the afternoon of the Gala, the day after, I've missed too much," she said. 

"You're exhausted," he said. 

"You're nice," she said. 

"Now I'm worried that you're drunk," he said. 

She smiled and pulled her pillow in so she could bury her face in it. He was crouched down beside bed so he was level with her. He had to catch his fingers before they reached out and pushed the hair back from her face. 

"I'm not drunk," she muttered, "I just meant that I'm glad you're here. You're kinder than you need to be and not everyone is. Thank you." 

He sat back on his heels and tried to think of something to say to that. She turned back towards him, looking out from her hair for a moment before she clumsily pushed it back from her face. Her hand hovered for a moment before she touched the back of his where it still rested on the mattress. 

"Can you stay for a minute? Just until I fall sleep again?" she asked. 

"Yeah, Princess, I can do that," he said. 

She gave him a sleepy smile but her eyes were already fluttering shut. If she noticed that he'd called her Princess, she didn't say anything. That was the kind of thing that Chat Noir said to her, not the kind of thing that Adrien said. She had curled her fingers around his hand and he turned his palm over and held her hand until her breathing turned deep and even. 

Then just a little bit longer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy tropey shippy Adrienette, Batman. 
> 
> :) 
> 
> Also I haven't decided if Joe abandoned Adrien there to make his own way home or if he is still just sitting down in front of the dorms in a fancy town car reading trashy magazines behind the tinted windows and working out how big a tip he can get out of the Agreste kid. 
> 
> I think I'll leave that one for you to decide.
> 
> (And yes, calling the driver Joe is another Princess Diaries reference.)


	26. The Photoshoot

Adrien avoided everything in his life that wasn't essential. Half of the Parisian media was still buzzing with the fact that an Akuma had attacked so far outside the city and the other half was buzzing about the fact that there were pictures of Ladybug kissing Chat Noir. Everyone was on edge because it had been almost a week since there had been an attack.  Adrien was too anxious to face any of it. He had made it through five days of compulsive worry and it was wearing on him. 

He had now added worrying about Marinette to his collection of things to stress about. She had fallen asleep holding his hand and he had stayed there for a long time, sitting on the floor by her bed and watching her sleep. He had finally slipped away in the late afternoon after missing another horrible meeting that was supposed to have started at 2pm. 

He continued on with his life until Ladybug reached out again or an Akuma attacked or something changed. He went to work, he went to class. At night he patrolled rooftops and empty streets and all the places he could remember ever going with her in case he might find her or her doppleganger in one of them. He avoided going back to work unless it was essential because it was harder to hide there than it was at school. It even worked for a few days but on Thursday he had an actual appointment for a fitting and found himself trapped in a studio with the rest of the runway team. 

Adrien was almost able to behave normally. It was all an act and it felt like a very thin veneer between his normal behaviour and his constantly churning worry but no one seemed to notice. He laughed with the others as Liam made a show of his status as an Akuma victim. Liam seemed to find it funny in retrospect and had set a picture of his monstrous self as the background on his phone. 

“You’re finally here!” a voice said and Adrien looked up to see Milo. Incongruously, Milo’s voice brought up memories of that phone call from the morning he had woken up with Ladybug and Adrien barely managed to smile at him. 

“What can I do for you?” Adrien asked.

“Come with me!” Milo said grabbing him by the arm and hauling him out of the studio and into an office across the hall. Milo was a tiny New Yorker who talked with his hands and couldn’t always stick to a language. His French became English and then his English became Italian and then he was using American slang that didn’t make sense to the rest of the world even if they did speak English.  

Milo was lead on the winter line. It was an unusual position which left him in charge of coordinating everything that wasn’t the actual creation of clothing. He had to manage magazine spreads and runways and interviews. The line had to have a consistent ‘image’ across all platforms and Milo created that. He had to wrangle web developers and graphic designers. He didn’t do any of the work, he just made sure it all got done. No one doubted that it took a lot of effort. He was a tornado of a human being and spending more than fifteen minutes in his immediate presence was exhausting. 

He was talking about promotional photographs at a speed that would have been difficult to follow even without the switch to Italian when he tried to explain his vision. Adrien spoke three languages and was working on a fourth. None of them were Italian. 

“Milo, I don’t understand. What was that about Marinette? What are you talking about?” Adrien said. 

"No! You don't understand, I need a promo shot, something to lead with," Milo said. 

"No, I understand that, I don't understand what Marinette has to do with it," Adrien said. 

"Have you seen the pictures from your little prank shoot?" Milo said and before Adrien could answer, he was barreling on, "They're hot. You are hot in general, don’t get me wrong on that but you're usually pretty terrible at doing hot with someone. We've been trying for years to train you into it but no, put someone else in the shot and you get all stilted. I don't even know what it is, it isn't any one thing. You're just not right. I want to sell a little more sex with this line and your father has decided that you're going to lead it. Nepotism at it's finest. And usually I would be annoyed. In fact, I was annoyed. It would have been easier to sell sex with Pietro who basically oozes sex, he's a little gross in person but it photographs well."

"Milo, you're rambling," Adrien said. 

"But then I saw those shots of you and the little black haired girl and well, you can do sexy apparently, you just won’t do it for any shoot I have managed in the last how ever many years since you hit puberty. Wouldn't have thought it was possible but good on you, kiddo. So I go find Parvana and I say, 'Where did these shots on the shared drive come from? Who is she? Have you already sold the pictures?' and I find out it was a prank shoot with the goddamn interns. She's not even a modeling intern. She's in design," Milo flapped his hands as he talked. 

"It was just us messing around," Adrien said. 

"Right, good, fine, then I want you to mess around for me, wearing the winter line and with proper lighting," Milo said. 

"No," Adrien said, "Don't drag her into this, I can do the shoot with just about anyone else." 

"Experience has taught us all that that is a lie," Milo said, "You can do awkward and posed with other people. I want you to actually look like you want to eat her and the only picture I have ever seen where you were looking at anyone like that was that girl. Which leads me to believe that it is the girl, not the clothing or the photographer or the set up of the shoot or anything else I can control. So we bring the girl. She doesn't need to do anything. She just needs to stand around and let you stare at her with that almost drooling, hungry look on your face. Mmmmkay?" 

And then Milo had spun on his heel and swanned off down the hall and left Adrien staring after him in frustration. When he found Marinette at lunch, she had already been roped into the idea and spent half the meal telling him how much fun it would be to see a proper photoshoot from the inside. She was still a little quiet and a little distant but she seemed genuinely excited about it. He suspected that none of the words hungry, drooling or oozing had been used while suggesting the idea to her. Milo had set the shoot for the next day and that wasn't helping with Adrien's plans to wiggle his way out of it. 

He did not want to deal with promotional shoots while his head was full of everything else. He wanted the rest of his life to be quiet so he could put all his attention on figuring out how he could be helpful to Ladybug. 

He failed to figure out a way out of it. He hadn't come up with an excuse that would get him out of it and calling in sick was out of the question because it would have left Marinette alone with Milo's ideas and whoever he chose as a stand-in, probably the oozy Pietro. Adrien was not prepared to abandon her to that.

They used one of the penthouse studios, it was set as an office which just made the entire thing feel a little more dirty. It wasn't unlike his father's office and he was going to need to push that thought out of his head if he was going to survive this shoot. Usually he didn't care. It was just a matter of putting on the show and letting them take his picture until something turned out the way they wanted it to. 

He did not get stage fright.

Ever. 

Except for today. 

She was wearing her pink dress from the gala and a pair of ballet flats. Her hair had been swept up from her face and then let down in a cascade of curls over her shoulders. She wasn't a model but you could only tell in how she carried herself. She was beautiful. He was wearing one of the suits from the line. Plain black, very carefully tailored but beyond some interesting buttons, it was just a suit. He looked like a model. A pretty rack on which to hang clothing. 

"They let you wear your dress," he said. 

"Hips," she reminded him patting one. 

He smiled but didn't say anything inappropriate about her hips or her legs or the way the muscles in her arms moved when she handed him a flower that matched the colour of her dress. She wasn't his. He had made his choice. His choice was currently in danger and alone while he was here with the flashbulbs and make up and too many people. 

The shoot was going to kill him and the first few shots were just that awkward.  The photographer obviously blamed it on Marinette and kept adding direction for her to try and keep straight. She was faced away from the camera and the rest of the crew and only Adrien saw her annoyance. She was still and stilted and looked like she wanted to run. He caught her face between his hands and her eyes got wide. 

"The trick is to ignore everyone," he said. 

"Is it?" she asked. 

"Yes, even if it's a solo shoot and you're supposed to be looking at the camera, you ignore the people, people are just distracting," he whispered. There were probably people on the set who heard him but he was doing his very best to follow his own advice. Just be a model. Be a professional, get it over with and then he could get back to everything that mattered. 

Marinette laughed and that made him bolder. This he could do. He could get her through this without letting them make her uncomfortable. He pulled her in another step and she let one of her hands fall to his chest. Milo was off in the corner calling out various bits of direction and Adrien did his very best to keep it from catching Marinette’s attention. He put his hands where he was told but he kept her attention on him. She laughed as he made jokes, she shook her head at him when they were bad. As she relaxed, so did he.  

He picked her up and spun her around and she braced her hands on his shoulders to stay balanced. She laughed in surprise and Milo made an annoyed noise from where he sat in a corner. The photographer shushed him. Adrien was aware of the camera flicking but when he put her back down she leaned in to rest her forehead on his shoulder like Ladybug sometimes did and that erased every other thought. Looking down at her, her hair all black ink spread across pale shoulders, she could have been his Lady and that derailed everything else. 

"Don't lose that look but try for a smile," Milo called out. 

"What look?" she asked lifting her head to look at him. He'd leaned in so they were nose to nose. It was almost a kiss. He stopped himself before he kissed her but the last time he’d been this aware of the space between himself and another person he had been sitting in the belfry of Notre Dame with a girl in a red suit. His hands on Marinette’s waist tightened as he stopped himself from doing it. 

Wrong girl. 

Don't kiss girls just because they remind you someone. 

He shook that thought out of his head. 

He liked Marinette. That wasn’t so strange but somehow liking Marinette had become something else when he wasn’t looking. He wasn't even sure anymore when it had started. She had been just an old classmate then a new friend and somewhere along the line he'd started looking forward to seeing her and now this thrill at having her so close. He had kissed her forehead at the Gala, he’d spent a lot of money on tipping a limo driver just to drive her around while she slept, now he was about to kiss her properly. What had happened to being friends? 

He took a step back and then turned and walked out of the room. Milo was yelling behind him but he didn’t turn to look at either of them. He was so unnerved and he just needed to be away from the entire situation. 

 

* * *

  
He stood in a room across the hall. It was another studio. This one had unfinished floors and a rack of lighting but nothing else. It was ready to be built into a full set but right now it just looked abandoned. He leaned against the window. The glass was cold, it was still early but December and outside Paris was bright but gray. He heard the door and tried to prepare himself for the excuses he was going to have to give to Milo or the photographer or whoever had been elected to follow after him. It wasn't any of them. 

It was Marinette. 

Marinette in that short pink dress that was so perfectly her. Her eyebrows were drawn together and she crossed her arms and then uncrossed them as she stood in the doorway. He didn’t say anything because he’d forgotten what he wanted to say. She made some decision and started towards him. She turned back and frowned at the door which hadn't shut all the way and closed it behind her with a little sigh.

"Mari," he said but it derail his thoughts. Where did he get the impression that they were close enough for him to use a nickname? No one called her by a nickname. Not even Alya. Adrien had never heard her called anything but Marinette and here he was throwing nicknames at her like she was someone else. 

"Are you alright?" she asked. 

"No," he said. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked. 

She was being so nice but he couldn't quite get a hold on his feelings. He had been in emotional free fall since Ladybug's phone had rang through to nothing. Worry, anger, heartbreak, love. It was welling inside him and had been for days. Marinette and her hand in his hair had opened up floodgates. 

"I think you're probably not the best person for me to be talking to right now," he said. 

"Why?" she asked with a little snort and a half smile like it was a joke.

"Because I almost kissed you," he said. 

“Milo would have had a fit of joy if you had,” she said. 

“There’s model kissing and actual kissing. I was going to actually kiss you,” he said in a frank and even voice like he was pointing out the weather or the colour of her dress. 

“Adrien?” she said sounding almost alarmed. 

“I’m making a mess of everything, even this,” he said. 

“It’s fine. You haven't ruined anything. They’re all in there eating those little sandwiches, no one cares. Apparently Nadine has once threw a chair in a diva fit. You're perfectly reasonable as far as they're all concerned,” she rambled through the words as fast as Milo did. She laughed but it wasn’t a real laugh. She was giving him an out, a way to let this conversation go without having to talk about it. 

His heart broke a little and he hated himself for it. This was the best case scenario. He was in love with someone else and if she wasn’t interested, that made it easy. They could go back to being friends and he could relearn what normal boundaries were. He needed to stop falling in love with Marinette Dupain-Cheng. 

Some echo of that thought must have shown on his face because she frowned and reached out a hand. He took it and pulled her in so she was close enough to hug but the only place he touched her was her hand. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. 

“No,” she said and he could almost see another rush of words building and then she’d do that awkward adorable thing where she talked too fast and only looked at him in little flashes. She was smiling and getting ready to laugh it off again. He couldn’t seem to take the offer. It was his heart was an open wound. He hadn’t talked about his feelings for so long and now he didn’t know how to turn the flow of words off.

“I need to stop,” he said and her face fell into confusion. He was the one rambling now. “It isn’t you. You’re one of the best friends I have made in years. I am so happy to have gotten to know you these past few months but I need more space. I need to stop giving myself chances to think about you like this. You’re perfect and you deserve so much better.”

“Adrien,” she said and this time it was the start of a sentence, something serious and measured and he shook his head and rushed on before she could say anything that shattered his heart. 

He couldn’t decide what would be worse: if she liked him or if she didn’t.  

“Please don’t say anything. There are only two things to say to the idiot who tells you something like that. You’ll either break my heart or I’ll break yours. I am a selfish bastard. Here I am telling you that I want to kiss you but I am in love. I am the kind of in love that you don’t recover from. I’ve been in love with this girl since I was fourteen and if I live that long I will be in love with her when I’m a hundred and fourteen. She’s my everything,” he said. 

He stopped and let his eyes fall shut as he retreated a few steps before he attempted to look at her. She was staring at him with a partially open mouthed stare. He sighed and was hit by such a wave of embarrassment and anxiety that he wanted to cry. He didn't. He put his hands on her shoulders and gave her one of his very fake but very charming model smiles. 

"And now that I've ruined probably the first really good friendship I have made in years, I'm going to leave. I am sorry, Mari," Adrien said. He bit his tongue but didn’t take the nickname back. He forced a smile and then turned and left. He didn’t stop to apologize to Milo. He did stop to put the suit back and then he transformed and headed out into the city to run until he was too tired to think.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, Adrien why can't you stop talking. She gave you every imaginable chance to get out of that without saying it but no you just kept on declaring your love for everyone. Oh my god. 
> 
> In other news, I love this chapter and awkward lovesick not-dealing-well-with-his-feelings-until-they-blow-up-in-his-face Adrien is my favourite.
> 
> I also love Milo and he is one of my favourite OCs ever.


	27. Phone Calls with Alya #3

"Would you bail me out of jail?" Marinette asked. 

She was sitting in an empty office. If anyone asked, she was going to say that Adrien gave her the key and not that she just went door by door until she found one that wasn't locked. He could get in trouble for it. She was wearing her own clothes again but still had the full face of make up. Milo hadn't appreciated it when she had said that Adrien wouldn't be back to finish the photographs but he hadn't taken it out on her. It seemed like everyone who worked outside design was just a little bit nicer than the core of artists around Gabriel Agreste.

"Of course I will," Alya said, "Why are you in a police station? I can probably convince Nino to drive me out there if you're not somewhere nearby."

"I love you," Marinette said. 

"Love you too," Alya said, "But you're not a police station yet. You're a planner. So do we have a target?"

"Not the way you're thinking. I need to kill Adrien Agreste before we do anything else," Marinette said. 

"That sounds like a good story," Alya said. 

Marinette sighed and dropped her forehead against the desk. She stayed there for a moment then banged it dully against the calendar once before she sat up and took a deep breath. She scanned the room, looking for any evidence of her stalker but she hadn't turned on the lights and there were too many shadows, she couldn't even find the flicker of movement she caught sometimes. She wondered idly how long someone could be an Akuma before it started to do permanent damage. Was she was doing harm to this poor person by keeping them around? She dropped her head down again. 

"Marinette?" Alya asked. 

"Adrien almost kissed me," she said. 

"Like what kind of almost kissed you?" Alya asked. 

"The kind where his nose touched mine and he just kept getting closer," she said. 

"Oh, so not like the tripping incident," Alya said. 

"I was fifteen when that happened. You need to stop bringing that up or I will be going to prison for a double murder because I'll need to kill you as well as him!" Marinette said. 

Alya cackled. Marinette had a painful moment of imagining Tikki floating along beside her and listening in on the conversation. She missed Tikki more than she let herself think about. Tikki had been nearly a piece of her for years and she hated the separation almost as much as she hated being followed. 

"Adrien then proceeded to tell me that I was perfect and he's in love with someone else and I deserve better than someone like him, all while he was looking at me like, I don't even know how he was looking at me but it was the kind of look where I just sort of stood there in dumbfounded silence while he talked," she said. 

"Did you kiss him? Win him over from mystery girl?" Alya asked. 

"No, I stared at him until he ran away," Marinette said. 

"Girl," Alya said. 

"Don't girl me," Marinette snapped. 

"Girrrrrrl," Alya drew the word out until it didn't mean anything at all anymore. 

"Stoooooop," she imitated. 

"Nooooo," Alya said.

"He couldn't have realized some of this when we were fourteen? I might have actually wanted to hear it when we were fourteen," Marinette said. 

"You would have died of a heart attack if Adrien had tried to kiss you when you were fourteen. Your tiny little fourteen year old heart would have exploded. I would have had to call 112 and done CPR," Alya said. 

"You're not helping," she said. 

"I'm supposed to be helping? I thought I was just supposed to mock him until you agreed he didn't need to die over this. How about this, I have seen your current boyfriend in the tight," a brief pause as she chose her words carefully, "Shirt, you know the shirt I mean, and that's one hell of a consolation prize. Agreste is cute and all but if you're complaining about taking that to bed, there is something wrong with you and you need to reevaluate your priorities."

"Stop being dirty, I am at work," Marinette said. 

"That wasn't dirty, I can be dirty if you want me to, do you need ideas of what to do with him once you get him to bed? Because I have some ideas of things that would make you forget all about high-school crush model-boy," Alya said. 

Marinette laughed. She sat back in the big leather chair and drew her feet up like she was a little kid and giggled into the phone. 

"Boyfriend is good in bed isn't he? Flexible, like really flexible and one of those guys who's totally into it. I bet he's a cuddler too," Alya said. 

"I flat out refuse to respond to that comment. Absolutely not. I regret having ever told you anything. I am revoking your best friend privileges," Marinette said sitting up with enough force to unbalance the chair she was on. She had to grab the desk with her free hand to keep from falling over. 

"So I'm right," Alya said. 

"I'm hanging up on you," Marinette said. 

"I'm so right," Alya said, "Before you hang up in a huff, Nino wants to drag Model-Boy out with us sometimes soon. I had said yes but that was before near-kissing and rejection happened."

Marinette pushed off the desk and spun around. The chair was big and heavy but it still spun like the office chair she had had as a kid. She pushed off the desk each time it came around until she was spinning fast enough to be worried about getting sick. She didn't stop as she talked. 

"Invite him," she said, "He needs to get out and talk to people. I want to know who his mystery girl is. He's the one who made it weird. I'm just going to keep pretending like he never said anything."

"That's surprisingly mature," Alya said. 

"It's surprisingly offensive that you think I can't be mature," Marinette said. 

"Eh, er, ack, Alderan, I fell on him and he almost kissed me," Alya said in a mock voice. 

"I never called him Alderan and once again, I was fifteen during the tripping incident. Let it go!" she said finally stopping the spin. 

"See you on Saturday, call your boyfriend, he worries," Alya said and then she clicked off the phone and Marinette was left in the office alone. She dropped the headset back onto the charger and stared at it. She could just call him. The number would show up as the house number from Agreste, not this office. He'd know where she worked but that wasn't so dangerous. 

She stood up and the chair caught on a bit of rug and jerked instead of rolling properly. Except it wasn't a bit of rug. It was the Akuma's foot or it's knee or maybe it was a bit of rug or a dropped pen. She gave the phone one last long look and then put her shoes back on and left the office without making another call. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 112 is the European Union number for emergency services. Why is this not standard internationally? 999, 911, 112, it's three numbers, why can't we use the same three numbers everywhere!?! 
> 
> I know lots of people on the last chapter thought Marinette knew. Marinette doesn't know. There was a version of the story once where Marinette did know in that scene. I posted it on tumblr if you want to read it but if you click the link - you will be spoiled for things happening in Chapter 29. Chapter 29 hasn't gone up yet so proceed with caution. I think it's a minor spoiler because the meat of the reveal changed so much when I rewrote Chapter 25 but it is a reveal-related spoiler so if you don't want that ruined, don't click it.
> 
> Here is the [spoilery deleted scenes in question](http://ashesandhoney.tumblr.com/post/140228702941/sealed-away-spoilers)


	28. The Need for a Distraction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello. I sort of survived school. I mean. I'm not dead so that's a win. 
> 
> Neither apparently is this fic. 
> 
> But I deleted three hapters. 
> 
> If you are an old time reader getting this update in your inbox: firstly I adore you and am so thankful that people have subscribed to my writing but you should know that I deleted the smut scene where Marinette shows up at his window and I deleted the reveal. So the last thing that happened was Adrien essentially declaring his love to Marinette in the most painful and awkward way he knows how. 
> 
> If you are a new reader, hello welcome, I love you too, thank you for getting this far!
> 
> There are things I want this story to be that were ruined by having the reveal happen where it did and the smutty scene was clunky and bad and it just all needed to go. It took me months to admit that to myself.
> 
> I am going to post 2 chapters in quick succession today to reset the story on its new path.

****

Adrien stood as close the edge of the room as he could get without actually hiding in a corner. He was avoiding Marinette and she wasn't even there. The room bustled with all kinds of people prepping for the first of three dress rehearsals that they would go through for the winter show. Interns were among them but she wasn't. He let people fuss with his clothes and repeated the walk down the runway over and over as the lights were adjusted and the quick changes were practiced so that the same model could walk twice which always seemed like an unnecessary annoyance. 

His phone rang while a piece of the set was adjusted and he answered it. This was very nearly a cardinal sin on Milo’s set. Answering your phone when you were meant to be paying attention was volunteering to be screamed at in three languages while his hands flapped and he used every synonym in the book for the word ‘dedication.’ Adrien knew this but it didn’t stop him from lifting the phone to his ear. 

"You are aware of course that you owe Marinette after your absurd behaviour," Alya said without bothering with a greeting. 

He shifted his shoulders and pressed his lips together but did not do anything that might wrinkle the suit he was wearing. Letting out a sigh and sinking to the ground felt like the best response but he stayed standing. Of course, she had told Alya. She told Alya everything. Now he got to endure Alya knowing for the rest of his life. Maybe he could change his phone number and just cut her off but that would mean never speaking to Nino again either.

He sighed. Mostly he sighed for having considered it at all. 

"I suppose you have a suggestion," he said. 

"You are the only one of us who owns their own apartment. You're going to donate it to us for an evening," she said. 

"Marinette would probably rather stab me than show up at my apartment," he said. 

"I checked with her actually, her plan is to pretend that you never said anything and flat out to refuse to admit that it's awkward. She's incredibly stubborn, she'll be able to pull it off."

"Yeah, she is."

"Stop using that dreamy idiot tone of voice. You're job in all this is to make it less awkward not more awkward. Got it?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good, so, Saturday afternoon, Nino and I are going to put up banners and streamers and balloons and fill your fridge with alcohol that doesn't come in solid gold bottles from a winery where royalty once walked or whatever it is that you rich people drink and Saturday night, you get to host a surprise party at which you will not talk about feelings at all, in any capacity, capisce?" 

"Balloons and streamers?" 

"She is about to finish prepping for a runway show and you should see the reference letter that the jackass designer wrote for her. Apparently he didn't hate her nearly as much as he seemed to. It's worth a party but honestly I would take any excuse. I would throw her a 'Congratulations on your 80th month of being alive' party at this point just to drag her out. So your house?" Alya said. 

Adrien had to suppress the urge to argue over the ridiculousness of that but Marinette's stress had him worried too and maybe it would be good to force himself to be normal around her for a few hours. It would be worth having people in his apartment if it could make her day better. 

"Mi casa es su casa," he said. 

"Wonderful, talk to you later!" she said. 

He hung up the phone with a grudging smile on his face. 

“You!” Milo’s voice interrupted his thoughts about making sure to seal up the vault and trying to remember if he had anything embarrassing out that he’d need to clean up. Milo glared at him. Adrien slipped his phone back into his pocket and smiled his best polite smile. Milo pointed back at the line up of models but didn’t say anything as Adrien fell back into place. He managed to avoid the lecture because Milo was caught up in a wardrobe malfunction involving an errant bit of chiffon. 

Marinette didn’t appear and the rest of the afternoon passed without incident and without accidentally declaring how much he loved any of his other coworkers. See, it wasn't so difficult. As he was leaving in his own cloths again, he stopped to check his phone and see if anything had come from unknown numbers. He leaned against a wall near the door and tried to shrink into the shadows. 

He scrolled his messages and his social media but there was nothing. Nothing from Ladybug or Marinette or even Alya and her party planning. 

“The little bitch is probably sleeping with him,” someone said as they passed him and he internally cringed. Why were people like this? Wasn't there enough wrong with the world without starting conversations like that?

“She’s sleeping with Agreste if she’s sleeping with anyone,” someone else shot back and his shoulders tightened. 

“If you’re going to screw your way to the top then you can’t be too picky. Adrien because he’s pretty and makes the good invitations and Elijah so she gets the recommendation letterss and to go to last minute trips to Budapest,” said the first one. 

“Who am I sleeping with now?” Adrien asked pushing himself off the wall and turning the corner. 

He drew himself up to his full height and put on an expression he had stolen from his father. Arrogant and powerful and just a little bit angry.

A little cluster of interns stood in the middle of the hallway and they all gave him wide eyes. He had had lunch with these people and Marinette had considered them friends and that made it all worse. He had made peace with most of the model team and all his father’s designers being horrible people but he had hope for the rest of the world. 

“Never mind,” he said when no one answered him and he turned and went back the way he had come and instead of taking the rear elevator to the street, he took the stairs and transformed as soon as he hit the roof exit and went home via rooftops. The familiar route from roof to roof and down the street lamps along the boulevards just made him miss Ladybug more. 

When he got home another message was waiting from Alya on his phone. Marinette was indeed gone on a three day business trip to Budapest with a few of the designers for some sort of fabric buying trip or something. Alya didn’t care much. The message made him bristle at the interns and their rumour mongering all over again. 

<Come over anyways, bring Nino, come now if you want> Adrien sent. 

He didn’t impulsively invite people over. He just didn’t. After years of living under his father’s roof, he’d come to think of invitations as formal and careful things but he needed to not be alone with his thoughts. 

“You’d better buy the good cheese if you’re going to make me hide in your backpack all night,” Plagg said when he heard that they were coming with pizza and wine. 

“I could lock you in the vault with the Akuma,” Adrien said. 

“I’ll take the bedroom,” Plagg said. 

“You used to spend all your time in my bag and didn’t complain this much,” Adrien said. 

“That does not mean that I enjoyed it, it smelled like fencing gear and expensive leather and teenage angst,” Plagg said. 

“Go away,” Adrien said waving his hand at Plagg who zipped around him in a little circle. 

“You’re just annoyed that your girlfriend is in Hungary,” Plagg said. 

“My girlfriend is missing, Marinette is in Hungary, Hawkmoth is doing god knows what and the winter show is happening too close to exams for me to get enough sleep even if I weren’t worried about all that,” Adrien said. 

“Oh there it is, the smell of teenage angst still follows you. Does she love me? Please let her love me! My daddy doesn’t understand me! Oh the horrors of being me!” Plagg said in a falsetto imitation of Adrien. 

Adrien threw a pillow and Plagg phased through it so he threw another until Plagg was zipping away, still cackling. Adrien was laughing in spite of himself as he picked up the pillows and tossed them back on the sofa. He was going to have to buy Plagg the good cheese just for pulling his mood back from the brink. Even if the Kwami was a little jerk. 

He double checked the locks on the vault and stuck his head in the kitchen but of course everything was in order. He had checked the lock that morning and the cleaning lady had been through that afternoon and the apartment looked like a show room. He picked up one of the pillows and tossed it on the ground just to ruin the effect a little bit. 

Then he sat with a pile of math problems and waited for his phone to ring or a knock or for an Akuma to break through the wall and save him from his own thoughts. 


	29. The Sound in the Hall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second fic of a "deep six and revamp" update. The Chapters Formerly Known as 27, 28 and 29 needed to go away. 
> 
> And the newer and quite difference Chapter 27 and 28 now occupy their places. Read 27 first and if you don't remember what's going on since the last canonical chapter went up in February then maybe start with Chapter 25. 
> 
> Sorry for the seven month hiatus. Hopefully the next update will be within the week.

Nino could not hold his alcohol. He was a broader and heavier than Adrien but somehow it didn't matter. He got trashed far faster than he should have. Alya on the other hand could drink her way through an entire liquor cabinet and never waver on her feet. Having them both in the apartment made it feel a little more like a home. Adrien watched the two of them laugh and his tension eased bit by bit. 

Nino pushed his hair back from his eyes with one hand and pointed a half eaten piece of pizza at Adrien who was slouching in a chair in the corner. His glasses were on the table but he managed to find the blonde blur that marked Adrien or maybe he just remembered. Adrien had tried on Nino's glasses a few times over the years and they had always turned the world into smears of colours and given him a hell of a headache. 

"I bet you were an ugly baby," Nino said. 

"Why?" Adrien asked. 

"I don't know, pretty people were usually ugly babies," Nino said. 

Adrien laughed and shot back, "I've been pretty forever. I was a pretty fetus before I was ever born." 

"Source?" Alya asked. 

Adrien got up and grabbed the white box of his mother's things off the shelf and shoved Nino over to sit beside him. Sometimes being referred to as pretty or handsome or with some other superlative made Adrien's skin crawl but Nino said it like it meant nothing. It did mean nothing to Nino. Nino wouldn't have cared if Adrien had woken up one morning with horns and three noses. He might not have even noticed. It made Nino easier to talk to than most people. 

Adrien dug out a few baby photos and tossed them on the table so they slid across the table toward Alya. They fanned out like crime scene photos in a melodramatic interrogation on some American cop show. Alya picked one up and considered it. 

"Your mother was pretty but you were a tiny blonde troll child," Alya said then pushed it to Nino. 

"Troll, definitely part troll which would explain your Dad too," Nino said. 

"Shut up," Adrien said but he was laughing just imagining his father dressed up like a mountain troll in some children's book. 

Alya flipped through the other pictures and proclaimed Adrien hideous in every one while Nino reached into the box and pulled out some of the jewelry Adrien's mother had left. He raised his eyebrows at Adrien who shrugged and nodded. Nino grinned and then started slipping on bracelets and posing with each one until Alya had to put her drink down before she coughed wine down the front of her shirt. 

He picked up a ring and Adrien took it back from him. Nino didn't miss a beat, he reached for the little blue fan and considered it for a moment but couldn't get it to stick in his hair. The thing shimmered but wouldn't stay. Alya snorted and came over to help him scoop his hair back from his face so the little peacock fan sat on top of his head like a tiara. Adrien pointed this out and it devolved into a shoving match but the little crown stayed in place. 

"You're such a pretty princess," Adrien said and Nino did a little queenly wave and Alya did snort her drink out her nose and she had to scramble to the bathroom to wash wine off her face and her shirt. 

Nino gave back the bracelets rather than risk getting tomato sauce on the diamonds and gold when he went for more pizza. He kept the little crown while they watched a movie where a lot of things blew up and Alya loudly pointed out every plot hole. Adrien tried to drown her out with trivia about the costuming and the lighting choices. Cinema had enough in common with photo shoots that he could make educated guesses and soon the movie was lost to a conversation where they planned out their own film. Then that conversation got lost in memories of the film project from school and their akumatized classmates. 

It was only a flash of chance - bad luck or maybe good - that they'd fallen quiet at the same moment that Adrien heard breaking glass. 

"What the hell?" Alya said.

They all looked in the direction of the hallway and Adrien looked around as though he could figure out who had left the room. He met Alya's eye and his own mounting panic was reflected there but that didn't make any sense. Why would she be terrified? She didn't know what he kept in glass jars down that hallway, she couldn't possibly know. 

"You don't have a cat do you?" 

"Yeah, it's just a foster though. One of the girls at work has been fostering them for weeks but she couldn't keep them all this weekend so I ended up with one of them until Monday," he said and the lie fell out of his mouth easily. Alya's alarm didn't fade and neither did his own but neither of them volunteered more information. Adrien was too worried to ask what she was concerned about.

"Foster kittens?" Nino said. 

"Plagg, you furry little asshole," Adrien called loudly enough to wake the Kwami up then turned back to his friends, "Hang on, I'm going to check he's ok." 

"Who names a cat, Plagg? What does that even mean?" Nino asked and then laughed at himself in that way only small children and drunk people ever did. 

Alya didn't answer him and Adrien was already across the room and headed into the hallway where the two bedrooms were. It was a short hallway that ended in a window that looked out on the same alley that Ladybug used when she climbed up to his window. Just two doors and a blue and beige bit of carpet. Both doors were open. 

Both doors.  

Adrien swore softly and the sound of something shuffling answered him. It was followed by the scrape of what could have been glass on a wood floor or could have been his imagination. When Plagg appeared by his ear he almost jumped out of his skin. He edged closer to the door but before he could get there he heard footsteps behind him. Plagg darted into Adrien's shirt just as he whirled to find Alya behind him. 

"Just the cat," he said with a laugh that sounded forced and faked even to him. 

"Are you sure?" Alya asked. "The window's open, you're sure no one got in? Do you want me to help you look?"

"No one's here but us, I'm sure," Adrien said but he spun around and sprinted for the open window. 

He slammed it shut and pulled both doors shut as he went back towards the main room and pushed Alya ahead of him. He was making excuses about the cold and the cats as he did it and she was arguing with him but he was barely hearing her. Adrien panickedly handed Alya her bag and her coat and kept apologizing and lying and he wasn't sure what he was saying but he managed to get Nino to his feet as well. 

Then he ejected them from the apartment and told them to go straight home before slamming the door in their faces and spinning back to look at the hallway. He was frozen for a moment not so much by indecision as by shock. What the hell was in his vault and how had they gotten there? Had any butterflies gotten out?

As though in answer to his question a little bit of purple black flitted out of the open bathroom door. He stared at it. He had gotten used to the white ones fluttering around the apartment as Ladybug cleansed them. The movement was the same but the sense of dread this one carried was far worse and the colour alone was enough to make him nervous. He transformed before heading back into the hallway. 

He could do this. Even alone. Whatever was in there, he could deal with it.

Outside, in the cold December air, three butterflies had already made it out of Adrien's open window and were nearly invisible against the purple black of the night sky. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nino being fantastic with boundaries is a headcanon I will cling to: he asks before he starts screwing around with the jewelry and when Adrien's body language told him not to touch the ring, he just went with it and picked something else that didn't make Adrien uncomfortable without making it an issue.


	30. Book Two

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” 

― Ellbert Hubbard

 

# Book Two

* * *

# Broken Glass

 

 

“There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.” 

― Sarah Dessen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> makes self indulgent, kinda pretentious header chapters for my fanfic, cuz i'm super cool like that


	31. The Trouble on the Street

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on the shift to "book two" 
> 
> The big change is that I am going to be opening up POV from here on out. So Nino and Alya and Marinette will all get proper POV chapters to round out the Adrien POV. I'm excited about it.

The problem with dating Alya - or whatever it was that they were doing - was that she was about as predictable as a hurricane. Meterologists would say that a hurricane was going on some set path and then it would suddenly change course and destroy Mexico or leave their drunken boyfriend in a cab he probably couldn't pay for on his own. Sometimes the unpredictability was one of Nino's favourite things about her other times it was baffling and frustrating. 

"I forgot something at Adrien's, you go on without me. I'll call you tomorrow, ok?" she said once he was seated in the backseat of the car still complaining about how his apartment wasn't that far from the metro and he wasn't so drunk he couldn't walk the extra couple of blocks. 

"Wait, Al!" Nino had said but she had closed the door on him and when he slid back across the back seat and tried to find her, she had disappeared into the dark. He ran his fingers through his hair and knocked the little comb out. It clattered to the sidewalk. He leaned down and picked it up chagrined to realize that he had worn it all the way down the street. He had to have looked like a drunken lunatic. He tucked it into his pocket and stared after Alya. 

"You did call for this cab, where are you going?" the driver said. 

"We did not, this is a taxi stand," Nino siad. He was pretty sure that was true. Maybe Alya had called for it but he closed the door and walked away and left the driver to worry about it. 

He didn't get back in the car and he didn’t head for the metro. Instead he cut back across the street and headed back the way he had come. He wasn't sure why he did it. Both Alya and Adrien were prone to acting weird but to have both of them be acting so weird at the same time was unsettling. Alya had looked freaked out and Adrien never did anything as impolite as pushing people out his front door and closing it in their faces. So Nino went back because whatever was going on, he needed to be sure that they weren't in some sort of trouble. 

He rounded a corner to find a man standing stock still in the middle of the sidewalk, just on the edge of the circle of light from a street lamp. Nino froze as well. His heart rate jumped but he wasn’t sure why, not immediately. 

"Are you ok?" he asked. 

The man didn't respond. 

The street lamp was behind him, casting his face in such deep shadow that Nino was close enough to reach out and touch the man's shoulder before he caught sight of his face. He reeled back a few steps and sucked in a breath. 

The man's face was chalky white and his features were picked out in darker lines that Nino knew from memory were green and red. The green pants and striped shirt and the hat were now all that Nino could see and he didn't know how he had missed them. The Akuma didn't move. Nino remembered him. Last Christmas or the Christmas before the Elf had thrown Snow Globes around the city and trapped people inside the swirling balls of snow and glitter. No one had been hurt that time but that wasn’t much of a reassurance. 

The Akuma didn't move. 

"Hey?" Nino said. 

Nothing. 

Nino backed away slowly and pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed without taking his eyes off the Akuma. It stared at nothing. The little hat on his head sat at a cocked angle and Nino was caught by the ridiculous desire to reach out and tug it off just to see what would happen. He didn't do that. He didn’t have a death wish. He lifted the phone to his ear and kept backing away as it rang. 

Nothing. 

"Alya," he hissed at the phone but her cheery voice mail message played in his ear and he hung up without leaving a message. 

He tried again. She still didn't pick up. He switched to Adrien's number and it rang through to voice mail. 

"I can't decide if the best case scenario is that they're screwing around behind my back or that they've met up with one of your friends," Nino said conversationally to the Akuma. 

He said a silent prayer as he kept backing away and redialed, “Please don’t let them have met up with an Akuma. Please.” 

Still nothing. 

Nothing from the phone. Nothing from the Akuma.

"Have a good night, Dude," Nino said. 

He hurried around the block and tried to double back towards Adrien's apartment down a safer street. He really didn't think that Alya and Adrien were sneaking away together to make out behind his back and while there was probably nothing he could do if they'd run into an Akuma, he needed to try and find them. Just in case. He wobbled a bit on his feet as he started to run. Too much wine. Bad night for too much wine. 

Going the long way around the block at a nervous jog only took a minute. Outside Adrien's building, he ran into another Elf. This one was a short woman and she was just as still and her hat was at just as jaunty an angle. Nino skittered to a stop in front of her but she didn't move so he just inched around her towards the door to the building. He kept an eye on her as he punched the buzzer code for Adrien's apartment. 

Which rang through to nothing just like his phone had. 

Nino swore softly and tried calling Alya again while he set the buzzer to ring up to the apartment again. Did Adrien have an access code? Had he ever told Nino the access code? Did the building even have an access code? Nino swore a little louder but the buzzer panel just kept flashing "No Answer" at him and he turned around and headed back out onto the street. 

He edged around the Elf again and crossed the street just so he didn't have to stand beside her while he tried to make a decision about what to do next. He looked up at the building and tried to count up to Adrien's window to see if the lights were still on but he couldn't remember which side Adrien's apartment was on, only that it was on the fourth floor. 

There had only been a handful of times that an Akuma had made a second appearance and it had only happened like this once that Nino could remember. The rare times that someone got Akumatized twice didn't leave multiple copies standing stock still. That had only ever happened with the very first Akuma. Ivan. His mind helpfully supplied that detail. The first Akuma had been a classmate and the hulking stone creature had reappeared like this and left frozen copies scattered around the city until one of the butterflies found its way back to Ivan. 

No one had ever been able to figure out why. Alya had all kinds of theories about Ladybug and her powers but there had never been any proof. 

Whatever it was, it had happened again. 

A scream down the street made him flinch. He whirled and looked in that direction but couldn't see why. One of the street lamps at the edge of the little park down the street from Adrien's building winked out. Then another one. The remaining shadows didn't look quite right. Fear climbed up Nino's spine. Another light gone. The little park was now a black void in the neighbourhood but the other street lamps and the lights in the buildings continued to glow brightly. 

The scream came again and Nino saw the shape of someone running towards him. He tensed and started to back away but the shape was much smaller than him. He crossed into a pool of light outside a cafe and Nino could see he was just a kid. Twelve or maybe younger. He was holding his baseball cap in his hand as he ran full tilt toward Nino. 

"Whoa, hey, what's wrong?" Nino said. 

The kid stopped beside Nino and looked back at the black hole of the park. He stood very still, his breathing hitching and his eyes darting back and forth. 

"There's an Akuma, it turned my friend into a tree," the kid said. 

"Shit," Nino said followed quickly by, "Sorry." 

He wasn’t sure if he was apologizing for the swearword or for what happened to the kid’s friend. 

Another shape broke out of the shadows in the park and Nino saw it leap to the next nearest street lamp and now that he was paying attention he could see the street lamp change, vines winding up from its base and branches spreading as it turned into a tall thin tree. Once the vines and branches reached the light it winked out. The shadow leapt to the next one and the process started again. 

"Shit," Nino said again. 

The other thing about dating Alya was that he knew a lot about Ladybug and Chat Noir and a lot about the Akuma. Alya had started getting him to read her blog posts to pick out any errors back when they'd just started to become friends while they were still in college. 

He remembered this one. This Akuma wasn't anywhere near that old. She was called Sakura and had turned a bunch of cars and buildings into trees and plants outside an economic forum being hosted in Paris that summer. She had gone through this neighbourhood last time too. Nino remembered them repaving the road outside Adrien’s building after all the damage she had done turning cars into greenery.

"Your friend isn't a tree," Nino said to the boy beside him. 

Two Akuma at once but neither of them were the worst possibilities. Three people had died in Sakura's attack but that was because she had transformed a pair of SUVs into little groves of trees in the middle of the street and caused a car accident and later transformed a building into a redwood and someone who had been on an upper floor had fallen. She had never actually attacked a person. 

"What's your name?" 

"Jacob," the kid said. 

"Did you see a tall blonde guy or a woman with curls?"

"No."

"I hope they stayed inside, come on, we'll help your friend first, then try and find mine." 

Nino took off at a run down the far side of the street, trying to stay out of the light of the streetlamps. He was not a hero but he could do this. It would be fine. Adrien and Alya would still be inside, probably looking for whatever she had lost but they would be fine. This kid's friend would be fine. There were two Akumas on the same street but at least he could do this. If he said it often enough maybe it would be true. It would be fine. 


	32. The Invisible Akuma

Adrien leaned back against the front door to his apartment and his heart beat against his rib cage like it was trying to escape. He stared at the familiar beigeness of his apartment and tried to think. 

This was bad. 

This was very bad. 

This was beyond what he could handle without Ladybug. He thumped the back of his head against the door once in frustration then hissed Plagg's name. The Kwami appeared and just the act of transforming made him feel a little more in control. 

There was still something in his house that had found the vault and some of the Akuma had got out but at least he was still Chat Noir. He shook off being Adrien. Usually, he had the run to the fight to do this but now he had to do it in the middle of his own living room. He spun his baton a few times and hopped up and down once before heading for hallway. 

He was a superhero with or without her. He could do this. 

He stood outside the vault and listened. Out in the other room, his phone rang and then fell silent. That was all he could hear. That and the hum of the fridge in the other room. He frowned at the door and then rapped on it with his baton. The metal on metal clang was loud enough to make him flinch. 

"Come on out!" he said. 

The door wouldn't open from the inside but he was hoping for a response that might give him a clue as to what he was dealing with. Opening the door could mean more Akuma drifting out. With that thought, he scampered off into the apartment and checked every door and window and shut his incessantly ringing phone to silent. He would deal with that later. 

On his way back to the vault he heard hammering on the door. He paused and considered ignoring it. He waffled for a moment before running across the living room, hopping over the coffee table still littered with wine glasses and the remains of the pizza. It could be the super or a neighbour or Nino come back for something he'd forgotten. Not answering the door might leave them in danger. The little peek hole gave him a fish eye view of the hallway beyond and right in the middle of his view was the back of a head. 

At first he thought it was Alya. 

The hair was the right colour but then she turned back to look at the door and knock again and he saw the mask. Ladybug. The Ladybug who wasn't his Ladybug but relief washed over him regardless. He swung open the door and she froze with her mouth wide open. 

"How'd you get here so fast?" she asked. 

"How did you?" he asked.  

"I was in the neighbourhood. I saw the Akuma. Seriously. How did you get here?"

He considered her. He considered all his options. He considered the chances of getting through this with the right lies told in the right order and decided that was a better risk than telling her who he was. 

"I have been doing this longer than you have, I have a keen nose for these things," he said. 

"Great!" she said with heavy sarcasm shoving him out of the way and stepping into the apartment, "Did- did the people who live here leave?" 

"You don't have to worry about him," Chat said. 

"I'm pretty sure my invisible Akuma is here," she said then the rest of the words spilled over each other, "Well, Ladybug's invisible Akuma. I think it lost her and followed me and I was in the neighbourhood and I heard breaking glass and I'm a little worried it has been breaking into people's apartments and I don't know why but I know I have to find it before things get worse." 

That explained the open window but it didn't explain how the Akuma knew where to find him and the vault. What had led it here? Adrien pushed that thought out of his mind. He needed to keep his attention on one problem at a time. First he needed to figure out how to find an invisible Akuma and then he prayed that this Ladybug would be able to purify it. Then he could worry about the questions of why and who and how and the more terrifying question of how many Akuma had escaped through the open window. 

"Stay there," Chat said. 

Ladybug did as she was told and he ran for the kitchen and started opening cabinets. Two seconds later, she was there behind him. So she didn’t follow instructions well, that could be a problem for the plan he had in mind if he wanted to keep his identity a secret. 

"Help me find something that will stick to someone invisible, flour or sugar or something?" he said.

Why didn't he cook more? Did he even own baking supplies?

"Are you sure it's still in here?" she asked starting on the lower cabinets. 

"I'm sure, I've got it cornered in a room," he said. 

“Where?”

“Focus, you’re looking for flour!” 

"You're bossier than you look." 

"Shut up." 

"Ah ha!"

She stood up and triumphantly held out a box of chocolate cake mix. He had bought it with Nino two years before because they'd been planning on making cake to celebrate the end of their exams. They had gone out for burgers instead and the cake mix had gotten pushed into a corner and forgotten about. Thinking about Nino sent a little ripple of worry through him. He hoped like hell that Alya and Nino had made it to the metro before anything weird had started to happen. 

He snatched the box from her and pulled it open as he explained his plan. 

"Stay," he articulated slowly. 

"Woof," she said in a sarcastic drawl. 

"I'm serious." 

"Fine, this is me, staying right here, waiting for the chocolate covered creeper to come down the hall. I heard you Cat Boy. I know what you want me to do." 

Chat gave her another look that she ignored, spreading her hands and trying to look innocent. Chat retreated down the hall. He did not want her asking why some generic apartment had a vault full of Akuma in it. That was a conversation he would happily skip so he left her in the main room where she never had to see what was behind either bedroom door. He shortened the baton until he could swing it in the hallway and then took a long deep breath. 

He opened the vault door and another three butterflies flitted by him. 

He named each one something more vulgar than the last but couldn't let them be his first priority. There was an already Akumatized person behind the door who had been trapped like that for more than a week. He felt a flutter of sympathy and then he heard the scrap of something on the floor and tore open the cake mix packet and flung it in a wide arc into the room. It filled the room with the scent of cocoa powder and made him sneeze. 

The Akuma rushed at him through the falling powder and he saw it cling to the vague details of a face and clothes but then he was skipping backwards, baton spinning to form a shield. He sneezed again and inched around so that he was between the Akuma and the window then he drove it back towards the main room. She - he thought it might be a woman because her hair trailed out in a long chocolate spattered tail - turned and ran from him and straight into Ladybug. 

It was an awkward and embarrassing fight full of trial and error. They couldn’t see her. They didn’t know anything about her but there was an Akuma hiding on her somewhere. They finally pulled a necklace off her and Ladybug smashed it with the heel of her foot. 

The Akuma fluttered out of it. 

Chat Noir sat on the floor and watched it circle up. It crossed paths with another one above them. He swore. His cream coloured carpet and beige furniture was covered in chocolate power footprints and scuffed marks and a bottle of wine had been broken and was draining on the chair in a big blood red stain. He hauled himself up and saw Ladybug looking between the unmasked Akuma and the fluttering butterflies. 

"What happened? Why are there so many?" she asked. 

"Purify as many as you can. Then we'll see if we can find anything to catch the others," Chat said.

She got one of the butterflies after two clumsy swings of the yo-yo that took out a vase and a framed picture on the wall. The purified butterfly came with the rush of light that cleared up the broken glass and smudges of chocolate and then disappeared into the rest of the apartment.  At least Giselle wouldn’t charge him quadruple her usual rate for cleaning the apartment and then kill him for making her work so hard. 

The woman who had been the Akuma sat in the middle of the floor looking confused. She wore a black business suit with a bright pink shirt and had her dark hair done up in a long elegant tail. In spite of the dark circles under her eyes, she was pretty and familiar. It took him a moment to realize why. He had had lunch with her a few times. 

She was one of the other interns in Marinette’s group. Marie-Claire? He thought that was it. He hadn’t seen her around lately but he had been so distracted by his own issues and he hadn’t really known her. 

“Pizza?” he asked grabbing the box off the table behind him and holding it out. Had she eaten while she was an Akuma? Did it matter? How had he lasted so long without every asking those questions?  

“Where am I?” she asked. 

“The most generic apartment in the entire city,” Ladybug said. 

“You’re an interior design critic are you?” Chat Noir asked. 

“Look how beige it is!” 

“How did I get here?” Marie-Claire asked. 

Chat Noir wasn’t really listening to her. Ladybug had waved her arm at the apartment and the movement had left her wavering. Her skin looked a little green. He left the pizza box beside Marie-Claire and crossed to catch Ladybug’s elbow when she started to fall. He swung her around and dropped her into an arm chair. 

“LB?” he asked. 

He couldn’t call her Bug but LB felt distant enough to use. He needed to call her something. 

“I think the magic is still going,” she said. 

“What magic?” 

“The glowy fix-it magic,” she said. 

"Turn back!" He heard this the words coming from somewhere inside his head. Plagg. Plagg almost never talked when Adrien was in suit. It was almost impossible for him to do but this thought screamed through Adrien’s head and took him completely by surprise. Plagg was streaming information into his head in a sharp short rush of jumbled thoughts. 

“You need to transform before it can drain the miracle stone. It must be chasing one of the extra Akuma,” Chat Noir said as he started to make sense of the tangle. 

“I-” she started. 

“Now!” he said putting voice to Plagg’s mounting alarm that was ricocheting around inside his head like the Kwami sometimes did when he was flying around the room. 

She turned and scrambled over the sofa and out of sight. He saw the flash of light as she de-transformed and both he and Marie-Claire stared after her as though they could see through the sofa. 

“I don’t think I want to be a superhero anymore,” she said and he could imagine her lying on the floor. She sounded exhausted. 

“You’re doing great,” Chat Noir said. 

His mind wasn’t on her or on Marie-Claire and how she’d managed to find her way into his apartment. His mind was on whatever Ladybug’s power had been following out into the night. She had once reassembled the Eiffel Tour, repaired nearly three mile of collapsed metro tunnels, she had brought back hundreds of people who had been caught in bubbles above the city or transformed into knights or zombies. 

What was going on out there that was that the magic couldn’t handle?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes, I did steal the "cover the invisible Akuma in powder" straight from the episode with Sabrina.


	33. The Difference Between Bravery and Decency

The little parkette was dark. The streetlamps had been turned into trees and left everything in darkness. The distant lights coming from the houses and from the unaffected parts of the city farther away weren't enough to give them more than shadows to see by. Nino didn't know the park well but this Jacob kid must because he was running down the paths and across the lawns. Nino had his phone's flashlight function on and the spot of harsh white light bounced around as he ran. It was making him dizzy.

Or all the wine was making him dizzy. 

Why did this happen on a night when he was drunk? 

"He's over here," Jacob said. 

Nino skittered to a stop and had to grab hold of a rail to keep from falling over. Running and alcohol were not a good idea. He would have to remember that. No wine on nights when he was going to have to run around trying to play at being a hero. 

"I'm a really terrible stand-in superhero, aren't I?" he said. 

"What?" Jacob asked. 

"Nothing," Nino said. 

The twist of greenery off the side of the path did look a lot like a boy turned into a tree. The branches twined out in a pair of arms and they rose up over the head. Jacob leaned in and knocked on it. Nino grimaced and forced his feet to move him closer to look at it. He was right. He was sure he was right. He had to be right. There was a piece of him that still expected Akuma attacks to work the way they had when he had been a kid and Ladybug had just fixed everything. It had never been all that frightening because you knew that it would all go back to normal. These days, this kid could really be a tree and there might not be anything that could fix him and he might be dead or trapped forever. 

Nino pushed all those thoughts away. He was right. Alya had rewritten the blog post on this Akuma four times and he had read all the drafts. Sakura turned things into plants. Not people. Things like expensive plastic running shoes made in unsustainable factories. Things like brand name t-shirts that were shipped on ocean destroying freighters. She had an agenda but she hadn't hurt people on purpose. 

"Alberto?" Jacob said. 

There might have been a sound from inside the tree. It might have been their imagination. How were Chat Noir and Ladybug always so confident in the things they did? 

Nino reached up and grabbed a handful of branches from where they started to widen at the top of the little tree and pulled. He had to brace his feet to do it but the plant was more vine than tree. It was soft enough that he could pull it down. Jacob grabbed another piece and helped. They yanked on the pieces. Nino had to brace his foot against the trunk to get enough leverage to break any off. 

They got enough pieces peeled back to hear the kid inside yelling at them. 

"Alberto?" Jacob said again. "Are you hurt?" 

Another yell. 

"You gotta shut up because we don't want the other Akuma hearing you, alright?" Nino said. 

Sensitivity was not his strong suit when he was drunk. He had once told Alya that her pants made her butt look nice and round while he was drunk. He had meant it as a compliment. She had not taken it as a compliment. He was trying to be better but he was worried and stressed and not sobering up as fast as he would have liked. 

Alberto stopped yelling and said in a quieter but more heartbreakingly panicked voice, "I just want out." 

"Working on it, little dude," Nino said. 

It was a surprisingly tedious job, rescuing boys from trees. Nino attempted to use his keys and other bits of wood as levers against the vines but pulling them apart was still the best option until they got down to where they had to cut away the little vines that had once been Alberto's t-shirt. Jacob had a pocket knife and by that point Alberto was starting to relax enough that he wasn't yelling or jumping at every noise. 

So it was a little bit startling when he started to scream and wave his one free arm at something behind them. 

Nino spun and swore. Then swore again because it hadn't done any good the first time. Creatively. 

The Akuma watching them from the dark was an new one. A third one. This did not happen. This never happened. This was supposed to be impossible. Alya had all kinds of theories about why this was impossible and he'd just accepted them as truth. He was so shocked, he couldn't even figure out if he knew this one. His phone had died so they were working on pulling Alberto out of the tree in the dark so he couldn't even see it. 

The Akuma was broad but short and had flashing eyes that caught the light like a cat in the dark. 

Jacob yelped and fell backwards but didn't turn and run. 

Nino took a moment to appreciate that. The kid had run away and left his friend once but he was not going to do it again. Nino hadn't moved either but that was more being frozen in terror than anything resembling bravery. He was not particularly brave. Going to help someone when you knew you were out of the path of the Akuma wasn't bravery, it was decency. Nino was a decent person. He didn't leave kids in trees. That wasn't the same as being a brave person. He did not stand and face an Akuma. 

"Hi," his said. 

"What did you call me?" the Akuma asked. 

"Nothing," Nino said. 

"You called me something before. I will not stand for such disrespect!"

"Oh that, yeah, sorry, I didn't really mean that you were a flying fuck, I was just stressed. It was more a comment on the situation in general, not you in particular," Nino said. 

"Insolent child!" 

The Akuma pulled an arm back and a ball of bright light gathered in their hand. Now would be a good time to run away except the kid in the tree couldn't. Nino dropped to the ground beside Alberto who was staring in silent shock. Nino made a decision. The decent decision, not a brave decision but hopefully it would be close enough. 

"Ok, so, Mr. Flying Fuck, maybe I did mean it, maybe you are a flying fuck, you know?" Nino was babbling but he had the Akuma's attention. 

Bad idea. 

This was a very bad idea. 

He was going to die or be turned into a pie or float away into outer space in a bubble to never been seen again.

At least his chances were better than tree-kid. 

"Bye!" he said.

He took off at a run. He ran as fast as he could away from the two boys and the tree. The park was dark but it was meant for people to take relaxing promendades through so it wasn't very dense with trees. He could weave through it even in the half light of the distant street lamps. 

Why hadn't he joined track or basketball or something? He could have, his school had an excellent gym and their sports teams won lots of games. Nino could have joined them and he would run so much faster. Instead he played video games badly and hung out and ate junk food with Adrien and joined a photography club because it seemed like a good thing to impress Alya with. None of that helped him improve the speed of his running. 

Nino stumbled into a flower garden and the first ball of light hit to his right as he scrambled for footing and veered off toward the street. 

"Note to self, do not insult Akuma, they're always all stressed out," he muttered as he hit pavement and was able to put on a little bit of speed even as his chest started to burn. 

He did not have a lot of options. 

All the apartments in this part of town had controlled entry, he couldn't just hide in their entryways. If he went for a cafe or a shop, he'd just be bringing the light balls down on other people. Alley. He could hide in an alley. That would work. One behind a cafe with lots of garbage bins and vegetable crates and things like that. It was a terrible plan but tonight was one terrible plan after another. 

As he ran past the still-frozen elf Akuma, his pocket started to glow. Apparently his phone wasn't dead and had switched itself back on. He fumbled to turn it off because having a glowing beacon in his jeans was probably a bad way to hide. He yanked it out and it was still dark and something else clattered to the ground. He should not have stopped but he was too confused by the blank phone and the now vanished flash of blue white light. He reached down and grabbed the little fan thing from Adrien's collection of momentos up off the pavement and glanced back to see if the Akuma was still behind him. 

A flash of red light answered that question as hit hit high above his head and bits of brick work rained down. 

"That Akuma really is a flying fuck," he muttered. 

"This way! Don't just stand there, why did I get a stupid one?" a voice called and Nino whirled to follow it. 

"Keep moving! Get out of the street, go faster! Ugh humans really are exceptionally stupid," who ever it was kept talking and Nino kept following the sound. Rude but the advice was good. 

He finally found an alley with a rear entrance to a building with a recessed doorway he could lean in and be hidden in shadow. He was breathing hard. Now that he had a moment, his chest had caught fire and every gasp of air hurt. 

Track team. Definitely. He was going to join the damn track team before this happened again. Next time, he'd run really fast. Super fast. And he was going to give up alcohol forever. It just made all of this worse. 

"You do know emergency activation is a bad thing, right?" the little voice said. 

"Did I set off your security alarm on your car or something?" Nino wheezed. 

He looked up. The alley had a lantern at the far end and an abandoned crate in the middle and another two doorways like the one he was cowering in. There were no other people. He straightened up and looked around. That was better, now he was't cowering. His chest still burned. He couldn't find the other person. There was no one else in his alley. He looked up. All the windows he could see were dark. 

"Who are you?" he asked. 

"Duusu," the disembodied voice said. 

"Fantastic, Nino Lahiffe, nice to meet you, are you a voice inside my head? Have I finally gone crazy? My mother told me I did when I didn't move out of the city to go to school but she didn't move out of the city either. Her excuse is that she's running her own business. I babble when I am going to die. I didn't know that about myself today. How are you, invisible figment of my imagination?" Nino said. 

"I am not a figment of your imagination, I doubt you are that creative," the voice said. 

"Great," Nino said, "It's comforting to know that the voices inside my head aren't quite as jerkish as you are." 

"Jerkish is not a word."

"Well, you aren't actually here so fake word for fake voice."

"I am right here, you idiot."

A thing flew up into Nino's face. A small thing, not much bigger than a softball. He yelped. First cowering, now yelping. At least there was no one around but the little figment of his imagination to see him. It was a shadow with a roundish head and a triangular body and it shimmered faintly in the poor light but Nino couldn't pick out many details. 

"So Duusu the jerkish blob thing, what are you?" Nino asked. 

"You're the jerk! Blob thing? I hate you already." 

"Great, you could go away, I need to get back to Adrien's and make sure that no one else got hurt." 

"Uuuuuuugh," the little creature drew out the sound into a moan. It zipped back and forth in front of his vision a few times. That didn't help with the dizziness. 

"What? What is it?"

"I was really hoping you'd just picked the miracle stone up by accident and you aren't really worthy and I'd be able to leave you and your made up words in this alley and go find my proper holder but no. It's you isn't it?"

"Miracle stone," Nino said and the realization dawned. 

Miracles stones were a theory that Alya had cobbled together from the things that Akuma had said. Akumatized people remembered nothing once they were brought back to themselves but the people around them remembered what had happened. More than one of them had mentioned miracle stones and taking them from Chat Noir or Ladybug. There weren't reports from every encounter of the Akuma using those words but there were enough that Alya had spent an entire summer collecting up evidence and interviewing people who had been close to Akuma and trying to figure out what the stones were and what they meant. It hadn't led anywhere. They didn't have enough information. 

"You're a superhero?" he asked. 

"No, you are, Mr. I'm going to go back to where the monster was trying to kill to see if anyone got hurt," Duusu said. 

"Oh no, I run and cower and yelp, I am not a superhero, at all, in the slightest. I'm more 'sidekick of the superhero's number one fan' level of bravery here and only that because she's really awesome and a very good kisser and I'm over sharing," Nino said shaking his head. 

"And I don't associate with people who overshare and think that that shirt is acceptable to wear out of the house and yet here we both are," Duusu said. 

Nino took a few steps out into the alley and held up a hand, he was going to nudge Duusu along but he decided that touching the little creature would probably be rude. They already weren't off to a great start. Duusu obliged by following him out to where the light was better. Bright blue, the triangle shaped body he'd seen in the shadow was actually a spread of glittering peacock feathers. 

"You're very pretty," Nino said hoping against hope that a compliment might make Duusu hate him a little less. 

"I prefer handsome but I appreciate your attempt at civility, you are pure of heart and will certainly be an excellent protector of the innocent," Duusu said. 

The little speech was forced but it didn't sound like a lie to Nino. He flashed a grin at Duusu who didn't return it. Slow progress but progress was progress.

"Not to rain on the parade because being pure of heart is all well and good, but I'm still not really the hero sort," Nino said. 

"Too bad, so sad, you can learn. You should have seen the Chat Noir that Plagg had in Shanghai a few centuries back. She was a wreck, dropped everything, even when she was in the suit. It was a bit of an issue given that she had the power to destroy things with a touch. But don't worry, you'll catch on fast enough. We should probably get on with the going back and checking on people," Duusu said. 

"Right." 

Nino had questions about Plagg and this other Chat Noir and the casual use of the word centuries. He had a lot of questions but Alya was out there somewhere and so was Adrien and if there were multiple Akuma, they were going to spread faster. He needed to charge his phone and called his parents. He turned to head out of the alley but Duusu didn't follow him. 

"Coming?"

"You should probably transform first. It's less likely that you will die that way."

"Does Ladybug and Chat Noir have a little buddy like you? Are they as cheerful and optimistic as you?"

"Kwami, I am a Kwami," Duusu said. "Yes, they do, and it's actually a relief to know that at least a few of the others have already been activated, your city has some strange energy. The last emergency activation was for Wayzz back before anyone had invented running water. I've always had a chosen user, not one picked all willy nilly like this. Now, you do still have the fan, right?"

Nino held it up. He was not going to do this but he held it up anyways. 

"Keep your mouth shut until I am done," Duusu said pointing at him. The Kwami didn't have fingers but that didn't make the point any less judgmental. Nino slapped a hand over his own mouth. He couldn't tell, the Kwami didn't have an expression like a human's, but maybe he had quirked just a bit of a smile at Nino. Just a little bit. 

"You should attach the fan to your clothing. You don't have enough hair to wear it as a headpiece as it is meant to be worn. You could get a string for it but whatever works," Duusu said. Nino fussed with the little fan. 

Not doing this, he reminded himself. 

"Good enough. Mouth shut, you say 'Duusu transform me,' at which point I will do so. Then you'll have to figure out how to get around. The cape will allow you to glide for short distances but you'll probably hit a few buildings and fall into a few gutters before you've mastered it. That's normal. The fans are a tolerable weapon but your greatest strength is Aegis. It allows you to put something, someone, once you're a little better, some place, under your protection. The protection will be perfect but limited in size. Once you've used it, your timer starts to run down. See the eyes on the fan's feathers?"

Nino nodded. He was so not ready for this. 

"Each one will blink out. There are five across the top here, once all five are gone, you are you again," Duusu said. "Capisce?"

"Yeah."

Nino looked at fan that he had attached to his shirt with the little pin on the back of it. Had the pin been there a minute ago? Was it adapting to him? Was that how the magic worked? He rubbed the little warning eyes on the feathers. It felt like it was made out of metal. A fancy brooch. It had probably belonged to Adrien's mother. It really did not suit his personal style. 

"Well?" Duusu said. 

"Well?" Nino said. 

"You have to say the words Mr. Pure Heart, that's how it works."

"Yeah." 

Nino looked between the Kwami and the fan a few more times. What if he couldn't do it? What if Alya needed him? Alya didn't need a rescue. Alya punched Akuma in the face and got it on video. She had done it twice. What if Adrien needed a rescue? What if Ladybug or Chat Noir didn't show up in time? 

"Sometime before we all die of old age and the city burns down?" Duusu - who had been around for at least a few centuries and probably wasn't going to b dying of old age any time soon - said. 

"Ok, right. Yeah." 

"None of those words meant anything, important Nino Lahiffe." 

"Right." 

He took a deep breath and said, "Duusu transform me." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg writing Nino is fun. I really enjoyed that chapter and Duusu the asshole. 
> 
> A non-apology for the lack of updating:
> 
> So almost exactly a year ago, I started this story as a break from my other writing. No outline, new fandom, something to break up my other projects. It was meant to be just a little mental break. I also thought it would be like 10 000 words because I can never estimate the length of a project under any circumstances. Then it picked up more momentum than I expected and I got all stressed about it because it has more subscribers than some of my other stories have views and I don't know how to deal with a give-myself-a-break story blowing up like that. 
> 
> I am hugely grateful for the response but I'm also a little overwhelmed. 
> 
> So my new years resolution is not to care, to just write it out and figure things as I go. There's a very loose outline but the things that were stressing me out like balancing multiple reveals and dealing with Adrien and his family drama, I'm not going to let it stress me out. It will happen as I write and we'll see where it goes. I have a reveal planned out and it makes me happy. 
> 
> I make no promises of when the next update will happen and I make no promises that any of it will be any good but I'm going to enjoy the process and you're 100% welcome to come along for the ride with me. 
> 
> <3


	34. The Most Important Thing

The cat-boy had left her hiding behind Adrien’s couch with advice to “Feed Tikki,” and then he’d rustled around in the other room and climbed out the window. Alya was alone with the former Akuma and a throbbing headache and she was not happy about it. She pulled her phone out of pocket.

<I think the city might be going to hell> she sent to Marinette. Then another message, <sorry> but she hesitated before sending it. She wasn’t sure whether or not she meant it as a joke. The stretch of the magic, the extra butterflies, nothing felt quite right. Maybe the city was actually going to hell. She didn’t send the apology. She’d worry about whether or not the first message was true later.

She lay flat on her back with the phone held up in front of her face and waited for a response.

Nothing came back.

“Hey, are you ok? Did I hurt you? I didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” an unfamiliar voice with a trace of an accent asked.

Alya looked up. The very nicely dressed woman with the dark hair was looking down over the edge of the sofa. She looked concerned.

“Yeah, I’m ok,” Alya said.

She cast a glance to the side but Tikki was no longer curled up beside her. Could Kwami vanish like the Akuma had? Was that possible? Alya had another thought and snapped up to sit with her feet crossed. The girl recoiled as though she was afraid that Alya was going to attack her.

“Do you remember anything? What you did? Why you did it?” Alya asked.

“No, no, did I do terrible things? I was upset about Elijah picking that girl as his new pet, I didn’t want to hurt anyone, I just wanted my project back,” she said in rush.

“You were a pain but you’re not as bad as some of them,” Alya said sinking back to the ground.

She had been so hopeful that since this woman had been an Akuma so long that maybe she would remember more than most of them. How much danger was Marinette in? She still didn’t know. She was supposed to be the investigative journalist and all she’d be able to write about this was a treatise on all the things she didn’t know.

“I heard yelling and a crash outside, do you think Chat Noir and Ladybug are in trouble?” the girl asked.

Alya groaned. Chat Noir probably was in trouble because she was in here feeling sorry for herself instead of out there doing something useful. He hadn’t come right back which meant something was wrong. Nino was down on the street. Adrien was somewhere. Alya needed to get up.

“Get up, Cesaire,” she said aloud.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She lay still for another moment and then rolled over and pushed herself up. It annoyed her that she was so exhausted. Marinette always came prancing back after an Akuma battle better than she had been before. Tikki had explained it but it still felt unfair to be this tired. The kwami bonded to a holder. It wasn’t as simple as wearing the earrings. Tikki had to decide to help Alya and had to work hard to keep it together but it was a little like two people driving a car that was missing some parts and the driver had failed their exam. It was a broken system but if they both focused they could keep the transformation together.

Alya had failed her driver’s exam but that wasn’t the point. The point was that she and Tikki had worked out a bit of a system but the drain on the power had been intense and it hadn't hurt before. Alya’s head ached and dizziness hit her badly enough that she needed to grab hold of the sofa to keep upright.

“Stay here,” Alya said pointing at the ex-Akuma.

Victim.

Akuma victim. Had she not gone off on people on her boards for calling them ex-Akumas or referring to them by their Akuma moniker? Person. Victim. Not villain. She almost apologized before remembering that she hadn’t said it out loud. She kept a hand on the wall as she stumbled for the kitchen.

The freezer door was open and on the counter beside it Tikki sat with a box of ice cream bars and three wrappers sitting beside her.

“You’ve got a sweet tooth, don’t you?” she said.

“He doesn’t have any cookies,” Tikki said and it was the closest thing to a complaint that Alya had ever heard from the Kwami.

“I’ll go to the bakery and get you some of those giant fresh ones that are bigger than you are, I promise, just as soon as we sort this out. Are you ready to go again?” Alya asked.

Tikki sighed. Sighed. Tikki. Little ball of joy and enthusiasm, sighed like a teenager with too much homework.

“If you can’t, we’ll figure something else out,” Alya said. She didn’t know what that would be. Not for the first time, she found herself wondering how Marinette did this. How did Ladybug always seem to know what to do to make it better? Alya shook her head, fixed her hair and straightened her back. She could do this. She could totally do this.

“How about this, we’ll wait. I’ll go out on the street, try and figure it out, make a plan then we can transform just if Chat Noir really needs us.

Tikki nodded and buzzed up to settle herself into the folds of Alya’s scarf. Alya ran out of the kitchen and went to lean against the window and look down at the street below. She was hanging halfway out and couldn’t see much, something had put out the street lamps on this side though the lights in the buildings were still on. She ran through to Adrien’s bedroom next.

“I swear his bed is bigger than my entire first apartment,” Alya said as she pushed open the window but it just looked out on a fire escape and an alley.

She dug her phone out of her pocket as she headed for the door. There were more reliable ways of finding out what was going on in the city than looking out a window. The Akuma victim, whose name she still didn’t know called after her but she was already on her way for the stairs.

“It’s probably safer if you stay in here,” she called back back over her shoulder. Adrien could deal with her when he got back.

She ran for the elevator and then had to stand and bounce as she waited for the elevator to arrive and for her feeds to load. They were slow which meant that it was bad. If too many people used the cell service at once, it slowed to a crawl. Alya had tried to explain to Nino how you could tell something was wrong just by how slow it all loaded.

Finally the little spinning circle became a list of links from across social media platforms.

The feeds were chaos.

The most reliable twitter feed had at least four reputable sightings. There were another six from her closest competition. The Chat Box had a terrible name but was almost as good as her Ladyblog even without the history. They spent too much time talking about how hot Chat Noir looked during an Akuma attack but otherwise, they tended not to be full of crap. Some part of her resented it but she opened up their blog and started reading as the elevator arrived.

She hopped inside and waited for the doors to close. She swore to her reflection in the elevator glass as she jabbed the ground floor button again and again. Tikki’s head popped out of Alya’s scarf and she had to float out beside Alya’s head in order to get out of the way of her hair. Alya was still bouncing in spite of how tired she was. Too much adrenaline. Maybe she was having a panic attack? She pushed that thought down.

“What is wrong?” Tikki asked.

“Ivan all over again,” Alya said.

Tikki seemed confused.

“The very first Akuma, remember him? It was Ivan,” Alya said. “And something went wrong when Ladybug tried to turn him back. It worked but then there were too many of the butterflies and a bunch of other people turned into the same guy. See?”

Alya held the phone out to Tikki to show her the pictures. Multiple frozen Akuma up and down a street, a guy had taken a selfie with one of them. The same person over and over, all in red and white stripes.

“But he’s not the only one,” they’d finally reached the lobby and Alya took off across the lobby at a run. Tikki disappeared back into the scarf.

There were three other sightings of Akuma she recognized, but no one new. Chat Noir had been seen on the other side of the river. Ladybug hadn’t been seen. Of course she hadn’t. Alya was Ladybug. She needed to keep reminding herself of that.

“Tikki, I’m never gonna catch up to him on foot,” Alya said. She had run up the block to the little park because just beyond it the lights were back on. Once she was back on a lit street, she could worry about figuring out where Chat was and what she could possibly do to help. Tikki was nestled in the scarf, Alya could feel her tucked in at her shoulder.

The Kwami didn't answer her and Alya kept moving.

“Don’t go that way,” a panicked voice said, “The crazy light ball Akuma thing chased the guy that way.”

Alya skittered to a stop. On the side of the path were two kids, one of them standing halfway in a bush. It looked like they had been trying to pull off all the leaves and branches. She considered telling them that that was a ridiculous thing to do in the middle of what was probably the biggest Akuma attack the city had ever seen but she kept her mouth shut.

“Well, hopefully he’s still chasing the guy then,” Alya said. “Are you two ok?”

“Almost out,” the bush kid said waving one foot as thought that was an explanation. It wasn’t but if the kids weren’t in trouble then finding Chat and making a plan went back to being the most important thing. She left them and their pile of branches and kept running for the lights on the street.

People gathered a little clusters around her and she almost crashed into a woman in a floral scarf.

Alya’s first thought was that they were all idiots for standing in the street but there was a shattered glass window in a cafe about halfway up the block. Some Akuma were more dangerous to property than they were to people and collapsed buildings killed. Sometimes the street was safer. They had probably evacuated but why they were just standing there was beyond Alya.

“Metro,” Alya said grabbing the nearest person’s arm and pointing up the street. The stations were used as shelters and most had been converted so they could be sealed up and keep the bad things out.

The woman turned to look at her.

“Go to the station, now,” Alya said.

“There are two of them,” the woman said.

“I know, so get out of the street,” Alya said.

Above them, someone yelled and everyone in the little group snapped their heads up to look. Blue and fast and flying low.

“I hate it when they can fly,” Alya said.

No. Not flying. This wasn’t much more than a poorly controlled glide. The Akuma hit a wall flailed until they managed to grab hold of a balcony to keep from falling to the street. They hung there, blue cape swinging and catching light so it shimmered.

They stood and watched.

Parisians knew better.

They had lived with this threat for years and yet they were all watching the clumsy shimmery Akuma attempt to get a hold of the balcony as an elderly lady threw open the shutters and hit him with a broom. She was yelling at him in a language that Alya didn’t recognize and he was yelling back in French but it was hard to make out the words in all the yelling.

“A clumsy one, that’s fun,” Alya said.

“I don’t think,” Tikki started in her ear but whatever she thought was interrupted.

A ball of bright yellow light flew over their heads and crashed into the window beside the woman with her broom. She shrieked and Alya’s crowd scattered. Alya ducked behind a sandwich board advertising the specials. She watched the blue Akuma grab the little old lady and yank her out of the window and pull her down with him as they dropped onto the balcony below and disappeared into the apartment together.

“Are the Akuma fighting each other?” Alya asked.

“I don’t think-” Tikki said.

Another flash of light and Alya interrupted her again, this time by calling up the transformation.

The restaurant patrons had finally taken her advice and were headed for the metro station. They were halfway down the street and facing the other way but this was still a terribly public place to transform.

This wasn’t regrouping with Chat Noir to make a plan but she had to do something before something terrible happened to the lady with the broom. The woman had guts. Not many people would try to take on an Akuma armed with only cleaning supplies. Alya respected that but didn't think that there was much possibility of success.

Once she was Ladybug, she could feel that tug. The troubled magic that both of them were going to have to fight to keep the transformation together. She wished she knew what it was like when it worked properly, when she didn't have to work so hard just to hold onto the change.

“I will give you back to Marinette the minute she steps off the plane,” she told the miracle stone but it wasn’t alive, not like Tikki was, it didn’t care about her promises. All it knew was that she wasn't the right person.

Another ball of light shot over her head and hit one of the civilians. Alya flinched but rather than being blown to bits like the window shutters, the woman was caught up in a spotlight and struck a pose. Alya's panic let go a little. People weren't going to die.

She threw the yo-yo, she still sucked at this but she was better than she had been. She scrambled up onto the balcony and spun to look for the threat. An Akuma was on the opposite set of rooftops and another light ball hit near the balcony. Alya dodged and caught her fall with the yo-yo, she swung in a wide arc and managed to come up with good enough aim to hit the Akuma with both feet.

He was a smallish man in dark clothes.

She remembered this attack. The Akuma victim had been a stagehand who had been put out of work by some technological upgrade. The spotlights were the same but there hadn’t been much other damage. The first time, that Akuma had been a woman.

This person was not the same. Another victim, transformed into the same Akuma.

Like Ivan, those other people had changed into the same Akuma but they’d all worked together. 3 of them, all doing the same thing. What had Ladybug done to stop them? The fight with the giant face at the Eiffel Tower? Was that happening here too? Did she need to find the face?

She sighed and watched the Akuma scramble up from where it had landed on the pavement.

“How many have you seen?”

Alya was cool. Alya was very good at dealing with Akuma, Alya was Ladybug. Alya did not scream and freak out. She was not expecting a voice behind her, that was all. And it wasn't a scream. And she definitely did not flail.

She yelped.

Chat Noir stood behind her, baton in hand, eyes on the Akuma who had scrambled away and turned to run. Didn’t they usually come after Ladybug and Chat Noir?

“What is going on?” she asked.

“I can’t purify the Akuma-”

“No shit.”

“Listen! I can't purify the Akuma. So I kept them. I sealed them up and I kept them. Bug’s been purifying them a few at a time but there were a lot and she wasn’t done yet. A few of them seem to have gotten out.”

His voice was tight with emotion.

“Not your fault, Cat-Boy,” she said.

“Which two have you seen?” he asked.

“Aren’t we going after that guy? Oh no! Broom lady,” Alya whirled and swung back to the other building and dropped into the apartment. Chat Noir was just behind her. He caught her arm to keep her upright when she landed badly.

Inside the apartment a man stood off to one side while the woman from the window continued to beat the blue Akuma with her broom.

“Hey, listen, stop hitting me for two seconds, OW!” he was saying, dodging around the broom and keeping his hands up to try and ward her off while she yelled at him.

“You from here?” Chat Noir asked.

“Yes,” Alya was indignant, what did he mean by that?

“Do you recognize that one?” he asked.

She considered the blue Akuma. He was tall. Taller than Chat Noir but only by a little, wearing a blue hood and the long shimmering cape with its peacock feather pattern. He had a mask but his outfit was simple. He was distinctive enough to be memorable. She had never seen him before. She shook her head.

“Today just keeps getting worse,” Chat Noir said.

“Aren’t you going to do something?!” the owner of the apartment gestured at the Akuma and looked directly at Alya. Ladybug. He was talking to Ladybug.

Chat Noir was calculating. He finally walked over and grabbed the broom. The woman who had been wielding it turned to him with fury on her face that faded to something closer to awe. He pointed the broom at the blue Akuma and said, “I supposed you want our miracle stones?”

“No, whoa, no,” the Akuma stammered.

“Are you planning on hurting anyone?” Chat Noir asked.

“Do you usually negotiate with them?” the apartment owner was a little shrill.

“Today isn’t a usual day. Are you going to hurt this nice lady?” Chat Noir said.

“No, hey, no, no, no.”

“Then get outside," he said pointing the broom at the window before turning to Alya, "We need a plan of attack, let's go."

“You’re leaving it?”

Chat Noir did indeed leave the blue Akuma standing in the man’s kitchen and vaulted out across the street and clambered up onto the highest point to look out over the city. Alya followed him. He hadn’t made a single joke. No puns. Nothing.

“Why did we leave it?”

“Because there are a pair of those light shooting Akuma on the roof of D’Orsay that are going to hurt someone. We need a plan otherwise we’ll just be running around doing nothing all night long. People getting hurt needs to be our priority. If no one is getting hurt, then it can wait.”

“Oky dokey boss man,” Alya said. “Why aren’t we going after that one that was throwing light balls at us back there?”

“That wasn’t the original Akuma. You can’t do anything about the extra ones. They don’t have a thing you can just destroy to release the Akuma. It’s locked into them until the original is destroyed,” he said to Alya in that tight terrifying voice. This was not the Chat Noir that she knew. She nodded and didn’t interrupt him.

“We have to find the original person. If they don’t get re-infected then the others stay frozen. We’ve already got a few changed but I saw at least a few that were still frozen. Once they’re active, we still have to find the original. That gets harder because they all look alike. We’re going to go after the ones who are already awake and worry about the frozen ones later,” he said.

“Can do, how do we know if we’ve got the original?”

His look was enough to tell her what she needed to know. It wasn’t going to be easy.

“Sakura was Helene something, she lived close to here but she’s also the least dangerous,” Chat Noir was talking to himself. “I don’t remember who the Technician was originally. She had brown hair.”

“Gloria Lenore,” Alya said immediately.

Chat looked at her again and asked, “The Elf guy?”

“William Xiao, he lives outside the city, the butterfly probably hasn’t got to him yet. He took up painting recently, he’s awful at it but he’s a nice guy.”

“I’m impressed,” Chat said and it sounded like he meant it. Alya took the compliment to heart. He didn’t say it like a flirt or a joke. He said it like he meant it. “Since you can’t hold the change long, can you take the people then? You seem to know them better than I do. Figure out what the item is that has the Akuma in it. There are some good blog records, Ladyblog has detail and definitely covers everything. If she doesn’t have it, try that terrible one that is always talking about my ass, they always talk Akuma fashion so they’ll have records of what the people were carrying. I’ll try and keep as many people safe as possible until we can find the right Akuma and get it purified.”

That he knew her blog and would recommend it was an even bigger compliment but she kept her mouth shut in spite of the desire to preen.

It was a solid plan but the idea of him out there on his own made her nervous. Seeing him all tight and scared. Scared? Angry? She couldn’t tell but it made him far more human. For a moment she looked at him and saw a person not a superhero. This was Marinette’s dorky boyfriend with his too big pajamas and his terrible jokes.

“And LB?” he asked.

“Yeah Cat Boy?”

“With that invisible one gone, will she be coming back?”

“Yeah, soon, I really hope it’s really really soon.”

They stood still for a moment. Alya didn’t want to leave him alone and he was looking out at the city skyline like he wasn’t sure where to start. There was a scrambling sound. Alya whirled and watched as the blue Akuma climbed up onto the roof beside them.

“I need to figure out how to get up here like you guys do. I need better weapons then these stupid things,” he said waving a pair of fans that had been attached at his belt.

“What the hell are you?” Chat Noir asked.

“Um, I’m a superhero?” he said.

“No,” Chat Noir said. “I’ve done this one before. I’m not doing it again. I don’t have time to have you attempt to trick us into giving up the stones. I’m having a very bad day already.”

He moved fast. Alya was fast as Ladybug but she still wasn’t used to it. Chat swung the baton at the blue guy and he yelped and jumped, landing on the staff itself. Chat flung him up and threw him over his head like a shovel full of snow.

Alya stared. The cape flared out and the guy drifted back down towards them, more graceful than before. He was stammering out apologies and explanations as he did.

“No, look, I’m not an Akuma, I swear,” he said landing back on the rooftop. “I’ll prove it! See!"

And then he detransformed.

Alya stared at him.

“Nino?!” Chat Noir said.

“Secret identities are secret you idiot!” The Kwami floating beside his head said. Small and blue and swinging back and forth in front of his vision.

“Yeah, but we’re all on the same team, aren’t we? Don’t you guys know who each other are? Don’t you have like Justice Team meetings?” Nino said.

Alya was still staring at him. He was going to fall off the roof. He was Nino. Her Nino. Her drunk, friendly, mildly oblivious but mostly adorable Nino. Nino was standing there with a Kwami buzzing around his head.

“No,” Chat Noir said.

Nino was standing there.

And Chat Noir had recognized him.

Oh.

Oh no.

Chat Noir was just a fraction shorter than Nino. Blonde hair. Lived, according to Marinette, in a very nice but surprisingly dull apartment where he had a room filled with Akuma in little jars.

Little jars made of glass.

That might break when an invisible stalker Akuma found them and started playing around with them.

Adrien didn’t have a cat called Plagg.

He had a Kwami called Plagg.

“Oh my god,” Alya said.

“What?”

They were both looking at her now.

“Oh my god,” she said again.

Her mouth opened and then closed again.

No. She was not going to put herself in the middle of that one. Absolutely not. Not for a million dollars was she going to be the one who said it. She was not dealing with that.

They could deal with it themselves when Marinette got back. She was not having that conversation. She just wasn’t.

She turned and said, “I’m gonna go find you all your Akuma info, you two go be a crime fight duo. I need an internet connection and a drink.”

Then she threw out the yo-yo and swung away from them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heh heh heh
> 
> Somebody had to figure it out eventually!


	35. Interlude: Painting with William

William Xiao had been the Elf. It was an embarrassing Akuma transformation. Utterly embarrassing. It was worse than going to the reunion for his art school buddies and having to admit that he had become a photographer working in the mall. It wasn’t even a nice studio. He took more passport photos than he took anything else. Except at Christmas. When he took photos of families wearing stupid hats or posing with stupid props.

That was the piece of his life that made the papers. The photographer turned into an elf, throwing snow globes up to capture perfect moments. Or any moment. He didn’t remember it but he had seen the pictures. He hated every single one of those images and he hadn’t picked up his own camera since.

He had moved to the suburbs, gotten a job in data entry at a faceless corporation and restarted his artistic endeavors from scratch. He would become a painter. He would paint landscapes and still lives and art. Things that made you feel something. Not passport photos. Not ugly children surrounded by Christmas baubles.

Art.

He had felt jilted and unappreciated then and as he looked at another ruined canvas, he didn’t feel much better. It was approaching midnight and he would have to wake up at 6 to make it to his terrible job. He picked up the painting and dropped it into the nearby garbage bin. The wet paint smeared.

A black butterfly fluttered past his window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a real chapter tight on the heels of this one either later tonight or early tomorrow.


	36. The Environmentalist

Nino leaned out to watch where Ladybug went and Chat Noir grabbed his sleeve before he could fall. He just kept leaning, trusting perfectly that Chat Noir would catch him if he slipped. Either that or he was still drunk. He had been pretty tipsy when he had left the apartment with Alya. Where was Alya? Could he ask that? Did Nino know that it was him? How was Nino standing there with a Kwami floating around his head? Nino, of all the people in Paris, Nino.

"What's her problem?" Nino asked.

"She's had a bad day," Chat Noir said.

"I guess we're going to have a bad day too. How many Akuma are out there?" Nino said.

"Lots."

"Are we going to die, do you think? Can superheros die?"

"We just have to stay paw-sitive."

Nino stared at him and Chat Noir grinned. The Kwami floating by Nino's shoulder made a derisive noise but Nino himself let out a cackle of laughter. Chat hadn't really been thinking about the joke. It had slipped out with more sarcasm than he usually let into his voice. Nino laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world. This was the Nino he had known since he was a teenager who was silly and good natured and easy going and not someone Chat Noir had ever really considered a possible ally in this kind of fight. Nino belonged in that other life. But he was someone Adrien understood, someone Adrien trusted. It was strange to have the two worlds cross over but watching Nino laugh at the pun made him feel better than he had since Ladybug had stopped answering his text messages.

They could get through this.

They were going to be ok.

"I've got no idea what I'm doing," Nino admitted.

"I had to figure it out when I was fourteen, if I can do it, you can do it."

"Yeah, but you're Chat Noir. I don't even have a super hero name."

"Paon, I swear I told you that," the Kwami said.

"Duusu, no, I swear you didn't."

"I did."

"You didn't, I would've remembered."

"Ugh."

Nino spun on the rooftop to face him again and Chat stuck the baton out so when Nino stumbled on the shingles, he had something to grab onto. He needed to transform again and they needed to get moving. The sounds of Paris were changing around them. The distant quiet rumble of traffic and the metro were giving way to more horns and squealing brakes. Paris was not a quiet city, conversations and music were never far away but during an Akuma attack, the radios and televisions were switched to the channels that ran reports of where the danger was so those neighbourhoods could disappear down into shelters while others continued on as though nothing had happened.

"Do you have one of these guys? Are they all like this?" Nino asked pointing at Duusu who grimaced back at him.

"Mine's a lazy sarcastic glutton," Chat Noir said.

"Yes, you're right, Plagg is all those things," Duusu said.

Chat snorted then grabbed Nino by the arm and pulled him away from the edge and up onto a more level footing. Then he planted the baton and pushed it up as high as it could go, leaving Nino to stare up after him as he scanned the skyline before dropping back to the rooftop. He couldn't see every place where they might be needed but they had to start somewhere.

"Let's go fight some bad guys," Chat Noir said.

* * *

  
There had certainly been more elegant battles in Chat's career as a super hero. Paon had slid down off the edge of the sloped roof of the Musee D'Orsay and Chat had found himself lying inside the sculpture gallery with a rain of broken glass around him. They had found two of the Technicians arguing on the rooftop but neither of them was the original and it hadn't taken much to run them off. Chat had climbed back out of the hole in the roof to find that they were both gone.

Nino was a quick learner but he fell into the role that Chat had always thought of as his. Paon was there at his shoulder, watching his back the way he had always watched Ladybug's. It left Chat scrambling to be the one with a plan, to not worry about tracking someone else's movements when she ran on ahead. He was the one who was running on ahead and taking the lead and every few minutes there was a moment when they stopped and stared at each other, each expecting the other to make the decision about what happened next.

There were Akuma running around but they were avoiding Chat and Paon. They'd find someone and they'd run off like a kid caught vandalizing a park bench. It left Chat confused and lost about what to do. What did you do with an enemy that wouldn't engage with you in a battle but was still wreaking havoc across the city? Usually the Akuma came to him with demands for his miracle stone but that hadn't happened once all evening. Tonight, every little skirmish ended with Akuma running away and Chat and Paon staring after them and trying decide whether or not to chase them.

It was well after midnight when they caught a bit of luck.

Paon caught sight of it after he missed a jump between rooftops and landed on the street. When Chat landed beside him, he pointed ahead.

"Do you see that?" he said.

For a moment, Chat had thought it was just a park but as he stared, he realized that the vegetation was too thick for that. It was a tangle of vines and low trees but the sign was still visible advertising financing rates on the purchase of a new car. Each car had been transformed into a plant. They were still roughly car shaped, Chat could tell the difference between the larger SUVs and the smaller sports cars. He inched his way into the center of the lot with Paon behind him.

The glass and chrome showroom was still brightly lit.

Sakura stood in the center of the room, studying the cars around her. The paint shone under the light and her earthy green dress and nest of vines in her hair looked wildly out of place. With her back to them, so they couldn't see the green skin or pattern of leaves on her cheek, she looked like a hippy who had wandered in and was about to be escorted out by security for not meeting the dress code. Chat was pretty sure that they didn't actually have dress codes at car dealerships but if any of them did, it would be this place. It looked like the type of place his father would visit. He wasn't sure he'd be able to afford one of these cars even on a model's salary.

"It was all so clear," the Akuma said.

"What was?" Paon asked.

Chat turned to him as the Akuma wheeled. Paon didn't seem to notice that he had just cost them the element of surprise.

"The injustice of it all!" her dreamy tone was draining away, replaced with real anger, "These are nothing. Look at them. Nothing but hunks of metal!" her tone dropped back to forceful rather than wrathful, "Do you know how much damage strip mining does? Do you know how much strip mining they do to pull the minerals from the ground. The iron and the zinc and the alloys that go into a car."

"I don't think you can mine alloys, you have to make them. That's why they're alloys," Paon said.

"Shut up!" Sakura threw out a hand and they split and rolled in opposite directions as the blast of energy hit the window behind them and the metal door frame started growing.

"Did you just argue details with an Akuma?" Chat asked.

"Yeah, but that's like seventh grade science," Paon said. "You can't mine brass or steel, you have to make them."

"And the chemicals they use to make it destroy even more of our world!" Sakura said.

"Don't anger the Akuma," Chat said. "You should photo-sympathize with her."

Paon snorted, "That was bad, dude."

They were moving again as she whirled back and forth, trying to hit one of them with the vines. Chat was laughing and Paon was dropping more random factoids about car design and metals. Chat found himself having fun with it. He had expected this to be the worst night of his life. Anyone who got hurt tonight, got hurt because he hadn't done enough to keep those captured akuma sealed away and while that fear tugged on his thoughts he was still able to enjoy this.

"Steel's an alloy," Paon said.

"Fascinating."

"I ramble when I'm nervous. I'm rambling, aren't I?"

He also got distracted if Chat answered him. Chat had to knock him down so they could both roll out of the way of another blast of vines and scramble behind a sales desk. Paon was holding his fan in both hands tight enough that it bent a little. Chat squeezed his shoulder and gave him a grin and he relaxed a little bit. A very little bit but it was a start.

"Did she stop?" Paon asked.

Chat popped his head up over the edge of the desk and scanned the room. She was still there. Staring at the vines climbing up out of the metal door and creeping across the glass. One of the light fixtures in the room swung and another had been turned into a plant and it dangled above them casting the room in swinging shadows. Most of the cars still stood amidst the greenery looking perfect and new in glossy red and black.

"It was all so clear before," Sakura said. "He had instructions before."

"Hawkmoth is quiet today?" Chat asked.

This was different. Hawkmoth was always in control of an Akuma. Chat Noir had seen an Akuma crumple during a fight while they argued with the voice in their head but maybe he couldn't talk to so many at once. Paon shook his head at Chat as he straightened. He stood and met Sakura's eye as she turned slowly to look at him.

"He promised me justice," she said.

"He can't bring you that," Chat said.

"He promised."

"He's selfish and a liar, give me the notebook and you can just go home. Don't let a liar force you to do things. That isn't justice," Chat kept his voice calm and even and slow.

He knew enough about how the Akuma worked to know that this was a risk. The Akuma latched onto an emotion and spun it out of control. Her anger at the injustice of climate change had been made into something unreasonable by the butterfly. He needed to keep her calm before the magic took control of her again. She looked shell shocked when she met his eyes. He braced himself for the attack, to turn and run if he had to but she just stared.

"Last time, he wanted your miracle stone, he told me that if I brought it to him, I would have justice," she said.

"He's a liar, he wouldn't give you anything. Your work is more important than vandalizing cars, Helene, you're better than this," he was inching closer as he spoke.

She watched him.

"They're wasteful and opulent and unnecessary," she said.

"I know, but you don't want to hurt anyone and someone's going to get hurt if this goes on," he said.

"Some people deserve -" she started and Chat saw the anger reassert itself, the Akuma grabbing hold of her worst impulses and pulling them to the surface but he was too close.

He grabbed the little notebook away from her and tore it in half before the anger could become an attack.

A little black butterfly rose out of the torn paper and spiraled up.

"Get the butterfly, you're going to need something glass with a tight lid," he called over his shoulder at Paon.

She collapsed forward and he caught her with one arm to keep her from knocking her head against the ground. She seemed smaller and she wore a pair of track pants and a t-shirt that was far too big for her. He eased her down and put the baton away. She pulled away from him a moment later, scrambling up to sit with her back against the fender of a black car.

Chat followed her gaze to Paon who was standing on the table with a travel mug in one hand and his fan in the other. He waved the butterfly into the cup and then screwed on the lid and fiddled with the button to make sure it sealed. The Akuma fluttered up and down inside the canister, for all the world looking like it was trying to stay away from the little bit of tea sloshing in the bottom. Paon hopped down off the desk looking pleased.

"Good enough?" he asked. "Don't these usually go away?"

"That's a Ladybug thing, not a me thing," he said. "But yeah, that should work."

They helped Helene up and got her out of the dealership and found a pair of police cars waiting on the street. Chat nearly crumbled into himself. The momentary victory faded away as Helene was bundled into the back of the car and the questions started with, "Where's Ladybug? Is she gone again?" and kept going.

"There are at least two other Akumas out tonight, we gotta go," Chat said.

"Who's this?"

"He's with me, we gotta go," Chat said.

And then Chat was dragging Paon along with him towards the rooftops. He was usually good at the interviews with police or press but he didn't know where Ladybug was. He had desperately hoped that the woman who wasn't his Ladybug would go home to pull the research and give the miracle stone back to its rightful owner and that Ladybug would be here by now. He stared out at Paris and tried to make a plan. Where was she?

"Dude," Paon hit him in the arm with the fan and pointed up.

High above them, something shimmered. Chat frowned at it and watched as it advanced like a curtain being pulled across the sky. The stars were visible beyond it but it was like looking through glass. It kept moving. Chat was paralyzed as he watched it advance toward the sky line. The edge disappeared from sight and then a few moments later it closed.

And then it began to snow.

A snow globe that encased half the city.

Chat looked up at the big unnatural flakes floating down towards them and swore. It was going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So 5 days from now I will be starting training for a new job in a different country (I'm a Canadian, I will be moving to South Korea) so my uneven updates may get even worse for awhile as I settle or I may write a lot as I use writing to decompress. It will be one extreme or the other but I don't know which one it'll be. The next chapter is half written but you may still not see it until March or it may be up in 2 days. 
> 
> Sorrrrrry but also I am so excited and use author's notes a blog posts cuz that's how I roll.


	37. The News Broadcast

Marinette was stewing in her own thoughts as she sat at the breakfast table with Elijah and tried to pay attention to his plans for the day. They had a fabric supplier to visit and a retail shop to drop in on and then they would be back in Paris sometime after dark. It was a long time to spend with Elijah and his assistant who treated Marinette like she was there to be the assistant's assistant. The day before had at least included working with a local designer on a lower end line that would be released in select stores in the spring. It had been interesting to see the ways that the runway designs could become something mass produced. Today was just errands.

It didn't help that her thoughts were on Adrien and his declaration and his admission. She wanted to know who he was in love with. She wanted to know why he had told her he liked her at all. She wanted to know how close exactly he had come to kissing her and what that would have been like. Most of all, she wanted to know why she couldn't let it go.

Chat Noir was worried about her, Alya had said as much.

Chat Noir had been there for her for years. He had stood by her, protected and supported and joked with her. He was more than a cute boy who smelled nice - though he was both those things - Chat was her partner. She needed to let the Adrien thing go. It had been a nice friendship and he was a good person. He was kind and silly and took care of other people but she knew what she wanted now. He had been pretty and perfect and as much as she knew that she could fall in love with the boy she had gotten to know over the last few weeks, he wasn't her Chat Noir.

She wanted someone who understood it all. The loss and the guilt and the jokes that were only funny because if you didn't laugh then you were going to cry. She wanted Chat to tell her jokes that weren't funny at all but that made her laugh because they were just so absurd. She wanted to lie in bed with him and play with his hair while he purred and wake up to him giggling. She wanted the little secrets. She wanted to know what he did for a living because she still didn't think he was a basketball player. She wanted to meet his parents and go have lunch in his favourite restaurant and know all the silly little things like which video games he liked and what brand of shoes he bought.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Aline, "Looks like we're not going back tonight."

Marinette snapped up from staring at the remains of her breakfast and looked up at the screen. The TV was playing a Hungarian news channel but the images were clearly images of Paris. Paris in chaos.

“They don’t shut down the airport for Akuma attacks,” she said with a nonchalance she didn’t feel.

“I’m not going back until it’s over, Ladybug or not, I don’t want to deal with the metro when the stations are all in lock down. Let them fix it, we can go back tomorrow,” Aline said with a shrug. Marinette couldn't tell if she really didn't care about anything that happened in the city or not.

Marinette’s head hurt. Another attack that she wasn’t there for. People were going to get hurt and it was going to be her fault for not being there to help. Like everyone who had been hurt since she left. She pushed that thought away. She could go over it and over it but she couldn’t undo anything that had happened. Marinette needed to go back now. She watched the images on the screen. The sound was turned down and the ticker was in Hungarian but she knew what she was looking at.

A dome covered a small part of the city, it was a small space but big enough to trap thousands of people. She reached for her phone to check a feed in a language she spoke but of course it wasn’t there. It was still back in Paris. It was the only link between her identity and Chat and she hadn't brought it with her to try and protect him.

She hadn’t noticed the Akuma through the meetings the day before but it had gotten better at hiding. It had become less and less noticeable the longer it had followed her but as she turned in her chair and tried to catch movement out of the corner of her eye, there was nothing there. None of her possessions had been moved in the night.

“Elijah, what time are we leaving?” she asked.

“We are expected at the supplier’s office at ten, be at the front desk no later than 9:30,” he said without glancing at her. He had children and though she suspected that he lived outside the city center like most rich people did these days, the worry on his face made h im seem more human than he usually did.

She nodded and pushed back from her seat. That gave her a half hour to meet them at the front of the hotel to catch whatever too fancy car Elijah had hired with Gabriel Agreste’s money. As she walked out of the room, she glanced around but could see nothing moving. She could see both Aline and Elijah buried in their phones, but no unexplained movement.

In her room, she dialed Alya first.

“I can’t answer my phone but I swear to God, I am not dead, please do not ask if I’m dead, even if you are my mother and you love me and you have a right to worry. I’m not dead. I just don’t have my phone with me. That happens sometimes. It isn't like it's surgically attached to my hand. Alright Mom? And… um… a very quiet friend came to visit and made a hell of a mess. Yeah, that was cryptic but whatever. Leave me a message,” Alya’s voice mail message said.

“Shit,” Marinette said as the phone beeped. She listened to the empty air for a moment too long then said, “I’m going to be there as soon as I can, I’m so sorry Al. I really really am.”

She had already packed everything the night before except for her day planner and her makeup bag. She grabbed them and shoved them in the overnight bag. She’d left them out just to have something for the Akuma to move around. They were exactly where they had been left.

The Akuma hadn’t touched them.

Because the Akuma had been in Paris.

Her plan had seemed so neat. As long as she kept the Akuma distracted, Alya and Chat Noir could run around Paris convincing people that Ladybug was still there until Hawkmoth finally called the Akuma back to send it after the ‘real’ Ladybug. Neat and tidy and practical. Somehow it had blown up in her face and she wanted to know exactly what had happened.

When she had left the breakfast table, she had intended to meet the others at the front desk but that was stupid. She couldn’t go look at brocade samples while Paris was under attack.

She rummaged in the bag for a pair of running shoes and swapped out her heels. Running until she was exhausted had been how she had dealt with her emotions when she first moved out of Paris and while a therapist had eventually convinced her that it wasn’t exactly healthy to run instead of process, she had kept up a more reasonable jogging habit. She had gone for a run at dawn down the narrow streets around the hotel. The black pants she wore looked out of place with hot pink running shoes but she wasn’t patient enough to change into her sweat pants.

Before she left the room, she looked for the Akuma again.

It had become a habit so quickly.

Of course, there was no one in the little hotel room but her.

She crossed back to the bed and picked up the hotel phone. She held the headset in both hands and negotiated with herself about whether or not it was a good idea.

Then she dialed another number she had committed to memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Korea is lovely. My internet connection is terrible. 
> 
> Someone pointed out in comments that it is kind of surprising that Marinette would notice the Akuma at first but Alya wouldn't notice it following her. So I retconned a little here with the "it's gotten sneakier and Marinette had to look for it very carefully and set little traps like leaving out her planner now" because yeah, if it's noticeable for Marinette to have seen, it should have been noticeable enough to catch Tikki and Alya's attention.


	38. Interlude - Coffee with Aurelie

In the corners of New Orleans where the damage from hurricane Katrina had been cleared away but never truly repaired, dangerous things crawled out from under ruined porches. Bad memories, fears and grief were give form and went to find something to eat. Disasters left this in their wake. More than ten years later and there wasn’t much left but was was there was hardy.

Fu’s Ladybug had passed through the city and made a dent in the creatures. She’d come through on a high school trip. High school. Aurelie was still pissed at that. High school. How old had she been when Fu had given her the miracle stone? It has hard to say if he truly thought children were more incorruptible or if he was simply too old to make sense of how young a fourteen year old truly was.  
Aurelie kept an eye on Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She had since the girl had left Paris and had gotten drastically easier to track. It hadn’t been that hard to put the pieces together. She’d paid someone to get her the flight manifests for three months following the Paris fire and then started cross referencing everyone who fit Ladybug’s description. It had been tedious but not difficult.

Ladybug had been luckier that Aurelie ever had. That was her special ability wasn’t it? The good luck to find the bad things was a questionable kind of good luck but it worked out in the long run. And tracking her meant that Aurelie could clean up the stragglers after the lucky charm had done its work on the worst of the problem.

Now the girl was back in Paris with the Cat and the Mad Butterfly and Aurelie had the New World all to herself again. It was better this way. Far away from Paris, far away from the family that she could only hurt and from Fu and his moralizing.

Then the news of Paris had come in.

It had dragged into it’s second day. Something was very wrong. It was too big. It was too much and with both the heroes in Paris, the Mad Butterfly had gone from being a menace back to being an inconvenience. This though was something else entirely.

The entire city sealed away with no way in or out.

Broadcasts were running. Local news anchors were plastered cross the international news feeds that Aurelie scrolled while sitting in a cafe with a cup of miserable American coffee.

Multiple attacks. Multiple monsters. Maybe as many as hundreds of them depending on how hysterical the interviewee was. She frowned at her phone and tapped a manicured finger on the call button but decided against dialing the first number that had come to mind. There were more important things for her to be doing. She picked her travel agent out of the list of contacts and the woman had to wake up to answer the phone. Aurelie apologized and then started running off requests.


	39. Alliances

Adrien had left the defense of Paris to the girl who wasn’t his Ladybug and nearly passed out. His street was dotted with smaller snow globes holding people smiling and laughing. The snow that fell over the trapped neighbourhoods sparkled and didn’t melt. He could break the globes but it took cataclysm to do it and his miracle stone was already beeping for the third time in an hour. He could break the little ones but there was nothing he could do against the one that covered the city. 

It should have worked but it didn’t. 

He was exhausted and so was Plagg. There had to be limits on recharging the miracle stone with cheese. Eventually even Kwami needed to sleep. They climbed in through the bedroom window and said nothing as Adrien opened the fridge and fumbled to unwrap a round of camembert before he flopped down on the sofa beside the remains of the dinner he had eaten with Alya and Nino and fell asleep. 

It was light out when he was awoken by his ringing phone. He had no idea what time it was but he groped for the device if only to shut it up. 

“I don’t want whatever you’re selling,” he said to the unfamiliar number and clicked the phone off. Even if it was his father worrying over him, it seemed easier to avoid talking to anyone. One crisis at a time. Right now his crisis was all of Paris. 

“Plagg?”

“No.” 

“Really?”

“No.”

“Come on you lazy slug, get up.” 

Plagg made an unhappy noise but did it. Adrien wanted to complain too. He wanted to roll over in bed and pretend that he wasn’t anyone at all. Just a college student. Just a model. Nobody. Someone pretty and useless and boring. Someone whose biggest problem was struggling the math homework. 

But that wasn’t who he was. 

He had responsibilities. 

Adrien had no idea how long either of them had slept but it probably wasn’t long enough. Time spent sleeping was time that the Akuma were making things worse and there were so many of them. Adrien could barely breathe around the idea of what was happening and the fear that they wouldn’t be able to set it right. What was the second choice when the Lucky Charm’s magic light wasn’t enough? He didn’t know the answer to that. 

Out in the streets, the glittering snow was deeper. It flowed and spun at the slightest touch and was hard to walk through. It wasn’t like real snow that got packed down. It puffed up in clouds of glitter as he walked. 

Paris was quiet. 

Not just the quiet of a city after a snow storm, but the quiet of a forest after a fire or an abandoned building after the flood waters had receded . People were hiding. Parisians didn’t hide. They were too stubborn for that. Usually, people hung out in cafes and watched Akuma attacks raging on the street in front of them. Not today. Today the windows were all shuttered and the lights all turned low.

He could have been the only thing alive in the street. That possibility chilled him through. What if he was the only thing left alive on the street? 

Panic welled up in his chest. 

There was a flick of curtain on an upper story window and when he caught sight of the movement, the panic ebbed back down to something he could think around. He was not the only thing alive. 

“Chat Noir!” 

The voice was scratchy and high pitched and wrong. Chat had just rounded the corner onto the main boulevard. Everything was still and empty and clouds of glittering snow were kicked up with every step. He turned to look in the direction of the voice. 

One of the Elves. 

“I suppose you want my miracle stone?” he said. 

He was too tired for puns but the attempt to joke came like a reflex.

“I can control only one of them at a time. Sometimes four or five if they are in close proximity or if I can take control of the original,” the Elf said. 

“Who are you controlling?” Chat asked.

“The Akuma.” 

They stood in the street ten meters apart. Chat had his baton held loosely in one hand, ready for the fight that hadn’t started yet. There was no wind. There were no sounds from cars or the metro. The city was so quiet that the sound of dishes being moved somewhere on the block was the only thing that Chat could hear above his own heart beat. 

“Who are you?” he asked. 

“I am Hawkmoth.” 

“Great plan Mr. Super Villian, sir,” Chat said sweeping his arm at the city around them, “Just brilliant. What’s up next for an encore? Will you just skip the Akuma stage and move on to wholesale murder? People are going to die. You need to stop this.” 

“That is not how it works.” 

Chat rolled his shoulders, snapped out the baton and shot forward through the snow to land two blows before the Elf jumped away. He kicked up the snow as he went, making it harder for the Akuma to see him but when it settled the Elf was standing across the street from him again, watching but not attacking. 

“Don’t be so disrespectful.” 

“You’re not my real dad,” Chat drawled. 

“Shut up and listen, you insolent brat. Every Akuma is under my control but these ones have incubated in their negative emotions. Each one is a sliver of feeling sent out to a single person. The ones that were released here are not slivers, they’re daggers and swords. They cannot be managed.”

Oh. 

“Perhaps you shouldn’t have started this without a back up plan.” 

“You kept them.” 

“I didn’t have any other option. What else was I going to do? Just let the Akuma fly around re-akumatizing everyone? How is that a better choice?”

“You should have yielded when you were given a chance.” 

“Fuck you.” 

Chat Noir really should have done better. Something pithy or witty but all he could come up with was that. His hands were clenched so tightly around the baton that they were starting to ache. He wanted to launch another attack. He planted his feet on the ground and spun the baton around so he could lean on it. He was feigning ease that he didn’t feel. His chest was tight but he didn’t want this bastard to see it. 

“It is not my fault that you started a war,” Chat Noir said. 

“This was never meant to be a war. What I need is simple.” 

“What you want is more power and we’ve already seen what you do with the power you have,” another gesture at the city. 

“You are in no position to judge the things I have done for the people I love.” 

“Don’t pretend you care about anyone but yourself.” 

“Don’t pretend to understand.” 

“Did you want something?” Chat asked. He leaned more heavily on the baton. He tried to put as much disinterested arrogance into his body language as he could. He was furiously angry and had no idea if it was working but at least his voice had come out sounding flippant. 

“I am offering an alliance.” 

Chat laughed. A short snort of sound that echoed off the buildings around them in the quiet. 

“A city in ruins is not what I want.” 

“Could have fooled me.” 

“Getting control of the originals is harder given how strong their emotions are. The original Elf is untouchable but the original Technician can be controlled for short periods. He’s in the twelfth arrondissement now. If you can get close to him. I can keep him from attacking you until you have neutralized the problem.” 

“Neutralized the problem,” Chat echoed. 

“Go get your little friends and do something useful for once in your life.” 

The Elf stood still for a moment and then blinked. It turned back to Chat with a smile spreading and its head tilting to make the bell on the hat jingle. No longer Hawkmoth. Just another Akuma. It laughed. Chat extended the baton and shot up with it before landing hard on a rooftop and taking off at a run. 

He hadn’t actually agreed to an alliance with Hawkmoth. Not really. Not quite. But he was going to do it. Any chance to take out one of the Akuma had to be worth trying. 

Didn’t it?


	40. The Hero in the Story

Marinette sat in the train station and looked at a map. This was as close to Paris as anyone was allowed to get until the situation was brought under control. There were many ways into Paris. The river, the trains, the airport. None of them were passable. The dome or the authorities were blocking them all. She tapped her foot and frowned at the phone.

“Mlle. Dupain,” a voice said and Marinette’s head snapped up. Who would know her this far out of the city? She didn’t know all that many people. She wasn’t someone anyone would recognize on sight.

The question belonged to a woman who was taller than she was. Narrow and blonde and somewhat familiar though Marinette couldn’t place her. Her hair was cut short and styled perfectly. Her eyes were wide spaced and a bright green. She wore a suit and heels in cream and pink and looked like she had stepped out of the pages of a magazine. Even to someone who spent her days around models, she was striking.

“Hello,” Marinette said.

“The problem in Paris appears to have gotten out of hand,” the woman said.

This woman said it so casually. Like it was raining harder than she’d expected and she thought it might ruin her shoes. Marinette bristled. Obviously, this woman had never seen Chat’s eyes get far away and unfocused when the door to his Akuma collection had been opened. He wouldn’t look at them directly. This perfectly dressed mannequin didn’t know how bad it had been for so long. 

“It’s been out of hand for a long time now,” Marinette said.

“A man with a talent for making a mess is not nearly on par with this,” she said.

“People have died,” Marinette said.

“And more will if this isn’t put to rest.”

“You’ve got an opinion, do you? Good for you. Go tell it to someone else,” Marinette kept her voice low but her tone wasn’t hiding how angry she was.

“If I were talking to a fashion intern, that would be perfectly good advice. Marinette Dupain-Cheng is not worth the time. Put your childish temper aside and speak to me as Ladybug.”

It was said so simply that it left Marinette too baffled to respond. By the time she started trying to back track and deny it, the woman was already talking.

“It’s not a well-known secret. It took time and money for me to be sure but I’ve been following your career quite avidly since you left Paris. You could do with a little more method and a little less impulse but it’s nothing training wouldn’t help with. Not that now is the time for that. Stop sputtering.”

Marinette snapped her mouth shut.

Hadn’t she known this? Hadn’t she known that the secret was out in the wild now? Not well known but no longer kept under wraps the way she would have liked it.

“I suppose you work for Hawkmoth.”

“There was a brief period of time in which that was true but it was a very long time ago. That man is capable of making ‘determined’ into a character flaw instead of a virtue. He’s not worth my time. I was content to let him play out his petty fantasies but this is out of hand now. He’s going to do damage.”

“People have died,” Marinette repeated.

“Seventy-four over seven years. You’re more likely to die in a car accident or be murdered than you are to die in an Akuma attack. Most of them just make people look silly for a few hours.”

Marinette threw the remains of her cup of coffee into the woman’s face. It was petty. Childish temper. The coffee wasn’t even hot. It had left a film on the inside of the cup as it had cooled. It felt good though. It was probably more socially acceptable than punching her would have been.

The woman sputtered. And stared at her with wide silent eyes for a few moments. Good. Marinette held her stare and watched the coffee make her make-up run as it ran down her face. Her hair was plastered against the side of her face. People were staring at them. Marinette stood and flattened her hands on the table.

“People who can help, do something. They help when there are car accidents and murders. At least they try to help, they don’t sit in train station cafes and wax poetic,” she said and then turned and stalked away.

The woman caught up to her on the edge of the street where Marinette had marched out of anger rather than intention. Her hair dripped with coffee and she had pushed it back from her face in a smear of perfect makeup. She was a mess. Marinette took a moment to appreciate that.

“You need to find the Turtle. The old man has the fox and a sanctimonious attitude. I shouldn’t be surprised that he would like a self-important little brat like you-”

“I think I should go buy another coffee, maybe a glass of wine. It always looks so dramatic when people throw wine in movies,” Marinette interrupted her.

The blonde woman bristled and her lip curled for a moment but she got the reaction back under control before she continued speaking. Marinette clenched her hands into fists in answer but neither of them moved more than that.

“Hawkmoth has the Peacock but likely hasn’t realized it. It was too difficult for me to transport where I was going so I left it there when I left.”

“Right. Thanks,” Marinette said. 

“You’re going to need all seven if you expect it to work.”

“If I expect what to work?” Marinette asked.

“If you can collect all the miracle stones in one place, you get a wish. The kind of wish that bends reality. The kind of wish that is far beyond the magic of your little Lucky Charm.”

“That’s why he’s wanted them all these years? To make a wish? Like Aladdin and the magic lamp?” Marinette asked.

“It was what we both wanted.”

“Seventy four people.”

“You’ve never truly loved if you can’t see how that might be worth it in the long run.”

“There is something wrong with you,” Marinette said.

They were catching attention. Neither of them were speaking loudly but they were both angry and Marinette looked young without her makeup and high heels. She would barely pass for a university student like this and the blonde had coffee drying on her blouse and her mascara smeared across her cheek. People were watching.

The blonde glared at anyone who caught her eye and Marinette wasn’t much friendlier. She didn’t want anyone’s help in this matter. People gave them a wide berth. So far no one had called security.

“Love makes you do impossible things,” the blonde said. 

“If your love story has a body count, there is a problem,” Marinette said.

“I have come to terms with the loss that began this. He never did. That wish can save a city, reset a decade, give us all back a chance at being normal,” she said.

“Normal.”

“Yes, little Ladybug, normal. Normal people with normal lives. People who do not have to answer the call of everyone else’s suffering. People who are free to live the life they choose for themselves. You could be a fashion designer, date the cute blond boy, have a few kids, be normal. Don’t try and tell me that you’ve never thought of it,” she said.

Marinette’s mouth tightened into a sharp line. She had thought about it, of course she had. But this was who she was and who she had been for years. The idea of normal held it’s appeals but the idea that normal meant ignoring everyone else’s suffering made her skin crawl.

People were better than that.

Most people were better than that. This person wasn’t but other people were. She really did want to go buy another coffee to throw at this woman for presuming that Adrien or Alya or Marinette’s mother cared less about the world than someone with super powers did.

“You said seven, you mentioned six,” she said. She ticked them off on her fingers: “Ladybug, Chat Noir, the turtle, the fox, the peacock, and Hawkmoth himself. What about the seventh one?”

“I’m the seventh one. Yunna is my Kwami. The bee is mine.”

Marinette stood still and stared.

“Where have you been for the last five years?”

“Living my life. Don’t be sanctimonious with me, child.”

“I’m twenty one.”

“You’re a baby and the fact that you think twenty one is anything but a child is proof of that.”

“You’re a bitch.”

“Further proof,” she said with a smile that might have been properly condescending if she wasn’t still dripping cold coffee from her hair.

Marinette rolled her temper back in. It took work. She wanted to yell and stomp her feet and throw things but she pressed all that down.

“How are we getting into the city?”

“You are going to the subway tunnels. Pereire Levallois will be clear by sundown. It’ll be a bit of a walk and you’ll have to get around the police barricade that’s meant to stop the tourists but I’m sure you’re ever so resourceful,” the sarcasm dripped off her tone.

“And you?”

“My husband is a mad man, my son hates me and my daughter died before she had a chance to live. I’m never setting foot in that city again,” the woman said.

Marinette stared at  her.

Selfish.

How could you be so utterly selfish? People were going to die. Maybe people were already dead.

“My father’s dead, why is your loss more important than that?”

“It isn’t. Death happens to the best of us and the worst. It isn’t about importance. I choose to move forward. Paris is my past. Take this,” she threw a small object at Marinette and she caught it. It was a small gold hair comb. Old-fashioned, topped with a honey comb. “Tell Gabriel when you meet him that he should have quit when Adrien was still young enough to forgive him.”

Adrien. Gabriel.

Oh.

Oh no.

She pushed that realization out of her head before she had too much time to think about it. Not knowing had been better. Gabriel Agreste was Hawkmoth. This crazy selfish monster of a woman was his wife. Somehow Adrien - her Adrien with his architecture and his dorky grin - was related to them both. How had that happened?

“I’m not your messenger,” Marinette snapped.

“You’re not going because you are my messenger, you are going because you are the hero in this story. I am not. I do not want to be.”

Marinette drew her shoulders back. She was ready to argue but instead her resolve clicked into place. She was. She was the hero. Whether she wanted the role or not, she had been chosen for it. She had abandoned Chat Noir and Paris once but she would not do it a second time. She tightened her hand around this other miracle stone and the possibility of salvation for her city.

“What happened to your daughter?”

“She died in infancy. We had thought that perhaps we could us the miracle of the miracle stones to bring her back to us but the search just pulled my family farther apart. When you meet, Fu, he’ll be in the city, he’ll find you, I’m sure he’ll tell you all about the hubris -”

Marinette interrupted her again, “You abandoned your son in all this.”

“None of this is your business.”

“No,” Marinette admitted, “It isn’t. But it isn’t yours either. Take the coward’s road out of this. Go drink coffee and buy expensive shoes somewhere else. I neither need, nor want your help.”

She turned and marched away. She sensed, more than felt, the Kwami dive into her pocket after the miracle stone. There was only so far apart the two of them could be. She’d discovered that by accident once when she’d forgotten to put her earrings back in before school and Tikki hadn’t been able to board the bus with her. The two were tied together. She didn’t pause to look down at the little creature and start asking questions.

She kept her head up and her steps measured and she walked away.

Paris was waiting. So was Chat.

Finally, for the first time in a long time, had a plan that she thought might work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *spends two years and more than one panic-filled plotting session filling a box labeled back-story*  
> *dumps 90% of it out in a single chapter*
> 
> Writing Marinette facing off against someone who's temper is just as sharp as hers was fun. Let me tell you.  
> Angry Marinette is a dangerous force of nature and Aurelie is worse. 
> 
> ..... I'm actually enjoying this again? I got all worked up about making it "good" I mean if 800+ people are subscribed to a story, I have an obligation to make it good, don't I? 
> 
> It stressed me out a lot.
> 
> I've decided the answer to that question is "HA NO. I write what I want." 
> 
> This thing started as a rush of unplotted ideas and character bits just for fun and it will finish on the same note. I'm here for a good time. Not to create impressive literature.


	41. The Trap

“It’s a trap,” Not-Ladybug said simply.

“Yeah, sounds kind of trappish,” Nino said.

They were sitting on a rooftop. Paon looked uncomfortable to be up there. Chat found it hard to look at him and not see Nino. He was Nino in a blue suit with super powers but he was still Nino. Not-Ladybug didn’t seem to like him. She had positioned herself as far away from him as she could get without obviously shunning him and kept casting him these accusatory glances like he’d done something wrong.

“Trap,” Not-Ladybug said again.

“Yeah, ok, maybe but-”

“We’re not going,” she said.

“We’re out of decent options. It’s time to start in on the indecent ones,” Chat Noir said and he almost gave her the kind of smile he would have given Ladybug. His Ladybug but he stopped himself because she wasn’t his Ladybug.

He slouched down to lean against the chimney stack and ran his hands through his hair a few times. He wondered if his Ladybug, the real Ladybug, would have taken his side in this argument. Maybe. Probably not. This plan was madness and she would have told him so.

“Dude,” Nino started.

“Don’t dude me,” Chat said because that was the kind of thing that Nino said to Adrien and Chat was still feeling more than a little bit guilty about not telling Nino who he was. Did he owe Nino that? He had always thought of it as a shared secret and the person he shared it with was Ladybug not Nino.

“Sorry,” Nino said.

Chat almost started to apologize because he was being an asshole and hadn’t meant it. He especially hadn’t meant to direct it at Nino. Of all the people in the world, Nino deserved better than that. Not-Ladybug cut him off.

“Can we die in these suits?” she asked.

“That’s a terrifying question, why are you asking that question?” Nino asked.

Chat cut in, “No. I don’t think so. We are about as indestructible as cartoon characters.”

Chat Noir had had enough close calls to be very sure of that. He had been flung into the river. He had fallen more than four stories and shaken it off with nothing more than a moment’s shock that had never even hurt. It was possible that they could die by dismemberment or being crushed but even that seemed unlikely at this point.

Nino followed along with the decision once it had been made. They spent more time planning escape routes than they did planning the attack. If they all got caught, they were in trouble. 

The Technician had holed up in a subway station near the edge of the dome. Pereire Levallois wasn’t too far from the Arc de Triomphe and was in a mostly residential neighbourhood that had been emptied by the Akuma. It was a ghost town. The windows were dark. There was no sounds of traffic or television sets or even the hum of distant conversation. A shop with a broken front window stood on a corner and the display in the window was untouched. There weren’t even enough people here for someone to loot the display of handbags.

Every sound made Chat’s nerves wind a little tighter.

This was his idea. This was his stupid plan. If they all died or had their miracle stones stolen or both, he was going to the one to blame. He pushed that thought aside. One problem at a time. If they could remove one of the Akumas, they were one step closer to freeing the city.

“Do you think this will work?” Nino asked.

Chat kicked a soda can out of the gutter towards him and he frowned at it as it bounced off his ankle.

“Have a little can-do attitude,” Chat said.

“I think I hate you. I always thought you’d be super cool but no, you’re a maniac and have a terrible sense of humour. I think I hate you,” Nino said.

“I grow on you,” Chat said flinging an arm around his shoulder.

“Like fungus? Are you pun fungus?”

“You don’t have mushroom in your heart for a new friend? I am a fungi!” Chat said.

“I definitely hate you,” Nino said but a little laugh slipped out at the end and made Chat laugh. It bounced off the empty building and the looming wall of the snow globe that covered the city. It made him wince.

“Let’s go try not to die,” Nino said.

“You’re not a fungi,” Chat said and then added in a more serious tone, “We’re not going to die.”

He had never worried about things like dying when Ladybug had been in Paris. He had been fifteen and an idiot but it had never even seemed possible. By the time he was doing it without the lucky charm to protect him, he had forgotten how to be afraid of it all. He had enough to worry about in keeping other people alive, there wasn’t much energy left to devote to worrying about himself.

“Let’s go before I lose this change again,” Ladybug said from up the road, she stood at the mouth of the train station. Chat rolled his shoulders and threw an arm around Nino and dragged him up the road towards her.

They could do this. He believed that enough for all three of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Transitional snippet because puns!


	42. The Tunnels

Marinette stayed to the maintenance tunnels. She was running parallel to the main tracks because she didn't know anything about subways except that there was an electrified rail. She had heard that once but didn't know how to tell which one it was. It was a long lonely walk. It was quiet and claustrophobic and even though she had packed her backpack carefully and only had to walk about two kilometers, she was sure she was going to run out of food or water or make a wrong turn and never be seen again.

The Kwami buzzed around her. She was quiet and cranky and getting crankier the farther under ground they went. They passed through an empty subway station that was still outside the dome. There must have been police outside because there was no one in the halls or on the platforms. Her footsteps had echoed and she’d retreated to the smaller spaces of the maintenance tunnels. She would have to pass through six stations. She had marked down the names so that she would know that she wasn’t lost.

One down. Five to go. 

"Do you think Aurelie will be alright?" the Kwami asked.

"That woman was a bitch," Marinette told her.

"We've been together for fifteen years and she didn't even say goodbye," Yunna sighed.

"I think you have Stockholm Syndrome," Marinette said.

"You don't understand."

"Nope, I really really don't understand what you saw in her," Marinette said.

"Kwami, miracle stones, holders, the three of us bond, we're not meant to be separated. The story isn't finished yet."

"I know that."

"Because you read it in a book? Aurelie read all the books and the myths, she understood. She should have understood. I thought she understood," another heavy sigh.

"Because Tikki and Alya are killing themselves trying to hold onto the change because Tikki is my Kwami. I do understand. I have been doing this for five years. I know," Marinette said.

Yunna looked at her with accusing eyes and Marinette gave up trying to make sense of her mood. Yunna didn't ask anything else about Tikki or Paris. She just buzzed around Marinette in the tunnel and sighed heavily when she had a sad thought. She was louder than Tikki. The little bumblebee drone was soft but noticeable in the empty dark. Marinette wanted to grab her and shake her. Her mood was grating.

She would be able to make the walk to Pereire Levallois before sunset. She'd started farther out of the city than she would have liked but getting closer meant getting around more police officers at one of the closer stations. Getting down into the tunnels in the first place had been difficult.  No one had passed out of the dome on this line. There had been fewer volunteers and police officers combing the tunnels looking for lost stragglers in this part of the city than in other tunnels. She had hidden each time she’d heard noises and no one had come close enough to make her worry about being caught.

Some of the tunnels had been used as evacuation points for Paris's residents. The dome ended on the surface so while police were stopping tourists and adventure seekers from going into the city to see what was going on, there were still people coming out. The news had been full of interviews with Parisian refugees and Marinette had watched it them with a blind sort of panic ringing in her ears. She needed to be there. She needed to do something. She needed to know what was going on and she needed to sure that Chat Noir was alright.

Actually getting there was monotonous.

She heard sounds in the tunnel ahead. She froze. There were occasional side tunnels but for the most part, the tunnels were tubes and branching off of them to find someplace to hide was not something she liked. There were the modern tunnels but Paris had ancient subway tunnels and catacombs and steam tunnels. She knew nothing about it. Each time she took a branch to hide, she had no idea if she would walking into a maintenance closet or a mass grave from the 1300s.

That was probably dramatic but once the thought had crossed her mind it wouldn't leave. She wanted to text Alya to look it up for her but she didn't have any reception and Alya would be busy being Ladybug. She probably wouldn't appreciate a message that said, "Hey, I know you're busy trying to save the city but can you tell me how many mass graves from the middle ages there are in the 17th arrondissement?"

Her first fear that the voices up head were police officers looking for people like her was eased when she heard children's voices and the unmistakable tone of worried parents shushing them. Pereire Levallois had been sealed from the Paris side, none of the refugees coming out had passed through this line even though it was one of the closest stations to the edge of the dome.

So something had happened in the neighbourhood around the station.

Probably Chat Noir.

"Do you think they left people behind when they fled for their lives?" Yunna asked near her ear, making her jump with a muttered swear word.

"You are a ray of sunshine aren't you?" Marinette hissed back.

"You did the leaving, you can't understand the pain of being left," she said.

Marinette took a deep breath. Maybe on some other day, in some other week, she could have leaned on all that therapy that her mother had sent her to after she'd started acting up in school. She knew how to keep her temper in check. It had taken years to learn but after the death of her father, she had needed to learn it. She had always had a temper but after the move half way around the world, her temper had gone from a personality quirk to a problem very fast.

But she had spent too many days fearing that she had lost her secret identity and that she was going to lead the Akuma back to Chat and that she was failing Alya and all of Paris by not being Ladybug anymore and that she was going to get yelled at work and then have to take worried phone calls from her mother when she got home. It was too much. Her patience was gone and any calm she had managed to find was on thin ice. Yunna and Aurelie seemed to delight in breaking that ice.

"You don't have any moral high ground in this," Marinette snapped. "You and that awful monster of a woman were the ones who abandoned everyone. Did you even do it for a good reason? I left because my mother needed me. I left because I was a kid and what else was I supposed to do? Live in a box and pretend I was normal? I did everything I could. I couldn't go back to Paris but for every bad thing that happened that I could reach, I did. How many lives did you save? How many people did you protect? Or did the two of you just run around wearing nice makeup and pretending to be superior to everyone else?"

"You don't understand what she went through," Yunna said.

"And I hope that I never do."

Marinette turned on her heel and stomped up the maintenance hall as quietly as she could.

She passed the little huddle of people making their way up the main tunnel just before she got to the final station on her path. She could see them through the metal grate in a door but they seemed fine and were headed in the right direction so she didn’t stop to say hello. Her nerves had frayed a little more after yelling at Yunna. She wanted her miracle stone. Her own miracle stone. She wanted to hit something. She wanted to fix this mess. She wanted to see Chat and check on Alya.

She wanted to calm down and reorder her thoughts but she couldn’t do it.

She had left.

The little jab had hit home. She had left. She had left and Chat had made do without her when he never should have. 74 people had died. If she had been there, could she have changed that? Were those deaths on her? The questions kept her up at night. Chat had never called, never written, never reached out to her at all. He'd never even said her name in a public interview. He had cut off public interviews if anyone mentioned her. Should she have done more to help him from a distance? She could have reached out again instead of pretending she understood why he hadn’t called her.

They could have figured something out.

She stopped and flexed her fingers a few times. Counting in and out as the muscles stretched. She forced herself to be aware of her body and the moment and the place where she was standing. When Yunna buzzed by on another round of sighing and pouting, Marinette did not attempt to bat her out of the air and step on her.

"See Dr. Estelle, I can manage my negative emotions, just fine," she muttered to the empty hallway.

And she kept going. The past was the past and Marinette couldn't change it but maybe if she could get back to Paris, she could do something about the future.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know who would hate therapy? Marinette. I do think she would have benefited from it though. She's got her shit together better than Adrien does in this story in part because she needed help and she got it whereas he never did. 
> 
> The update binge is probably going to slack off again starting tomorrow. Ideally not 8 months of slack off but I'm at nearly daily right now and that's not gonna last. I have 22 report cards to write in the next three days and will probably have to bring them home to do it. That's gonna cut into my fanfic time.


End file.
